The flight of caged birds
by riotproof
Summary: Christian is a destitute nobleman. Anastasia is his base-born bride. (Medieval AU, Christian/Anastasia. Warning: sexism, ableism and dub/noncon.)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Warning for gross sexism and ableism (and dub/non-con in later chapters).  
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**Chapter one**

His knees ache badly against the stone slab floors, cold creeping through his bones like winter through the forsaken halls of Castle Grey. The Queen has not yet given him leave to stand. He is surrounded by his Father's enemies - nobles whose titles and lands are owed to the mercy of King Carrick, priests whose velvet robes would be hung on hooks were it not for the Crown, all turncoats gathered like crows to feast on carrion - and at their helm, a luminous, blond wraith, draped upon an ill-earned throne.

It's no surprise that he's the only traitor: the executioner's broadsword rests in a young girl's hands, a wide-eyed maiden stealing the odd look his way before glancing back to the throne. She is too delicate to be a slayer of men. The thought sticks in Christian's chest; he doesn't let himself dwell with such naivety again. After all, the war was won by a woman's hand.

Kate titters. She styles herself a Queen now, though she was only an earl's daughter a mere fortnight ago. Whatever secrets her bastard brother whispers in her ear, they turn her blue eyes mild and still the drumming of her fingers against the throne. "We are advised to kill you," she contends over the hushed, smelted silence of the hall, "as a warning to our enemies. What say you to that, Sir knight?" She will not use his name for fear of dredging up old ghosts. She is craven down to the marrow of her bones.

"My mother would weep."

"All mothers weep," Kate snorts, "for their sons' mistakes. Should we break the truce that has brought you to this hallowed throne room, how well do you think the Church would like our mercy?" Patience is not her strongest suit; hesitation earns Christian a swift reprimand: "Speak, sir. We will have your answer."

"I do not presume to speak for the Church, Your Highness," a title unearned, heavy and cloying like a mouthful of honey, but necessary lest the Queen should feel mistreated, "and I can only trust that in your wisdom you will see the value of an alliance between our two great houses."

She is no fool; as an earl's daughter, she would have relished the chance to bind herself to the younger of the Grey heirs. As a queen, she must look beyond her borders for a husband. Her bed will be the subject of much debate among her councilors. The offer is aspirational at best. Christian means only to test the waters: so far the court is one compact boil of pus and pretension. He marks the faces in the crowd, both of those he knows and those he does not. Come Judgment Day, he will put them all to the sword - let them try and sneer when he stands before them, crowned king.

Kate regards him with cold scrutiny, like a merchant appraising a horse in the marketplace. "We are moved by your plea, Sir knight, for we know it is made in defiance of your treacherous brother, your scheming mother, and your sister, whom we hear is lately accused of witchcraft and awaiting trial in Lorcastle." It would be a poor politician who'd let slide the wonderful opportunity to pile grievances upon grievances; Queen Katherine isn't that, at least. She's something much worse - a woman with a knack for outwitting men.

Christian braces himself against her judgment. His right leg has already fallen asleep.

"To show that _we_ can be magnanimous in victory, we agree to honor your appeal - with a wedding" is not what he expects Kate to declare before the gathered assembly. Her jeweled fingers beckon to the chestnut-haired girl holding herself very still against the glinting sword. "My handmaiden, Anastasia Steele, has been lately made fatherless by your brother's unlawful war. You will mend her heart and shower upon her all the lavish attentions of a loving husband, and you will do so at our expense, in this very hall - tonight."

To say he balks would be to say fire is only a little tepid. "Your Highness-"

"Rise," Kate commands him, "and be merry, Sir knight. You have earned yourself a far better peace than you deserve." The dismissal is obvious. Christian affords himself one last glance at the handmaiden who is his bride to be before bowing deep and making his exit from the hall.

A barb of dismay snarls in his chest. He is not some prize stallion to be disposed of as Kate best pleases; she may be Queen, but he is still a knight. A man is still afforded privacy in this country, is he not?

The sun is already low in the sky, its amber glow fading by the minute. How is he to send word to his mother in time? Surely there must be some objection he can raise to stop this farce. But what if, contends the voice of sanity, there isn't? Anastasia Steele is at best a woman of low birth in his enemy's court. At worst she is the natural born daughter of some former lord, a blank-faced court-puppet who will spy and spill his secrets into Kate's waiting ear. He can feel the trap snap around his ankles; tells himself he is not so desperate that he will do as animals in the wild and gnaw his own leg. There are still some cards left to play.

He finds Taylor in the tavern outside the castle walls, surrounded by bawdy women and rosy-faced patrons. Wisely, Kate would not allow Christian's men to enter into her fortress for fear that trouble might arise. She is right to fear: with ten men, Christian knows he could take her castle and her crown, and do away with her ill-fated reign before it begins.

Collapsing onto a wooden bench as he helps himself to Taylor's cup, he feels less certain about that prediction. "Have one of your sprites fetch me the bishop," Christian mumbles, all but inhaling the ale.

"Was he not in the castle?"

"Aye," Christian snorts, "but he will not like to be seen cavorting with me until I have been firmly separated from my claws." He takes another swig: "I am to be wed."

Taylor snorts through his nose. "When pigs fly!" His eyes widen when Christian doesn't partake in the joke. "Wed whom? When?" As Christian tells him, the look of disbelief becomes one of outrage. "You refused?"

"How could I, with the whole gaggle of'em watching?" Shame hits like an arrow to the heart. The ale tastes suddenly acrid on his tongue, a poor drug to make up for the whirlwind trampling his better judgment. He must save his sister somehow; he'll be of no good to his brother if he is dead. Excuses rise like soldiers: not one in the whole sorry legion makes Taylor's glower feel like any less of a heavy weight to bear.

"Perhaps," Taylor begins, haltingly, "she will be mild. Is she... comely?"

Christian tries to recall the girl's face in his mind's eye and cannot conjure a clear picture. "Her face was... very grave." He's never known what to say of a woman's beauty; it's too much like the buying of a horse to vaunt her qualities and too little like the bard songs his sister used to enjoy so much. "Bring me the bishop," he says again. "He may have ways to delay this ruse."

The bishop does not. Flynn was only a Prior when the war began; he looks uneasy in his new robes, fingers ornate with jewels. When he pries back the cowl of his cloak, his eyes seem haunted. "My predecessor fell from his bed."

"I'm sorry."

Bishop Flynn chuckles mirthlessly. "Aye, so am I. All the more so since it is rumored he fell onto a waiting dagger." He lets Christian pour him a glass of wine as he stands by the window, warily glancing out into the street below. "Her spies are everywhere. She has bought the loyalty of the people with money pilfered from Church coffers. They say she means to spare her new nobles their taxes for a whole year."

"And how will she pay for the loyalty of so many newly-minted lords? With smiles and witticism? Or does she mean to-" A single sharp glance from the bishop stops him from mentioning that Kate is yet unmarried; that she is removed to have slept with her captains and their wives alike. "Forgive me. These are... trying days."

"Indeed. I hear your sister stands accused of consorting with the Devil." Flynn is a man of the cloth, but he is susceptible to its weaknesses.

Christian doesn't contradict. "I haven't been allowed to see her since she was taken away. I came to plead for the Queen's mercy, but..."

"You have been saddled with a wife, instead?" The Bishop's robes trail across the floor as he comes to seat himself down at Christian's side. His hand is a heavy clutch, warm against the knee. "She is a handsome maid. At least you may take some comfort in that."

"She is a nobody," Christian retorts. "An albatross around my neck meant only to thwart a more fruitful alliance." Elliot will never be wed now that he is dubbed traitor and fugitive. Mia will likely spend the rest of her days in a monastery, far from her accusers. "Is there no way to prevent this travesty? Surely it is a perversion of the marriage bonds, to be entered into so lightly..."

"You forget I was your confessor, Christian. Perversion is not so foreign to you."

A better man would feel ashamed. Christian isn't that man. And still he asks: "Do you see nothing amiss in forcing this Anastasia Steele into my arms?"

"Between your bed and the Queen's court, I am hard pressed to say which is worse." Not so long ago, Flynn was party to the feast and fairs at Castle Grey. He can still jape with the best of them, for all that his voice seems tight now when he rises from the bed. "Base-born though she may be, a new wife will bear you sons, my lord. Treat her kindly and she will keep you in the Queen's good graces."

Christian shakes his head. "Have you not heard? I am _Sir knight_, now."

"You do not need your father's ring to be _Lord_ Grey, Christian. Never forget that." It has all the markings of a warning, but the Bishop's lessons have lost their pull since the war. He, too, seems diminished by circumstance. Christian makes to walk him to the door, but Flynn shakes his head. "We cannot be seen, lad. Oh, I am compelled by my position to remind Taylor that adultery is a sin in the eyes of God."

"Bishop?"

"These are his chambers, are they not? And that is a woman's comb beside the pillow?" Flynn squeezes his hand between warm palms. Christian considers correcting him but thinks better of it. "We will wait for you at sundown. May God keep you, my boy."

"If there is something," Christian starts, "anything - you can do for my sister, I would be in your debt." It's not a promise to attend his own wedding, but neither is it repudiation. He's well aware that he has been given a length of rope to make his noose. If he runs, he will have shamed Lady Steele as much as the Queen herself.

He watches the cloaked priest from the window until he passes out of sight in the thicket of houses and merchant carts rolling in with fresh goods for the marketplace. It's there that Taylor finds him an hour later, his tread heavy upon the landing.

"Finished with your Hail Mary's?" Taylor presses a cup of wine into his hands. "You look stricken. Did Bishop Flynn-"

"He serves a new master now," says Christian, not without a trace of bitterness. They were friends, once; now he is a beggar and Flynn keeps his tongue for fear of losing his head. That he came to the inn should be enough to earn Christian's gratitude; it is not. He knows no more of Anastasia Steele than he did this morning and still he is to marry her. Flynn did nothing to spare him the indignity of such a match. "I will give you coin to buy horse and saddle; that should do as a bride price, don't you think? Expect us at the east gate." Kate may have wrangled an alliance through marriage, but Anastasia isn't of her blood and there will be nothing to keep husband and wife in Stonemarsh once the vows have been spoken.

The sun is only a thin amber coin perched over the green forest west of the castle when he enters the Queen's throne room once more, armed this time not with a white flag but with his best tunic and his brother's sword scabbarded at his hip. The throng of nobles parts before him like the sea before Moses. He sees Bishop Flynn in their midst, but the priest offers no show of recognition; they must be strangers here if they are both to live.

"What an early bird you make," drawls Kate's brother, the Duke, "and proud as a peacock." Ethan of Ashlake has his sister's eyes, but what feminine wiles may smooth Kate's jagged corners into winsome sparks of eccentricity are absent in him. When he grins, his face takes on the mien of a shark. They say he is a great warrior, but Christian has seen him on the battlefield. He fights without honor, like the rest of his wretched tribe; his victory at Castle Grey means nothing. "Will you not bow before your betters, Grey?"

Christian's fists coil tightly. "I will, if you would be so kind as to point me in their direction." A nervous snigger unfurls around the room, snaking around Ethan like the worst kind of challenge. (Duels are fought with words as much as swords; it took his father's death to teach Christian that lesson.)

"You forget your place," Ethan hisses, quick to anger. The broad paddle of his farmer's hand makes to grip the hilt of a newly-forged broadsword. "You dare insult the throne of-"

A herald stops him short with three thumps of his lance against the stone slab floors: "Her Highness, Katherine, Queen of England, Wales and France!" It takes little more than a proclamation: men and women prostrate themselves at the summons, as regimented as veteran soldiers on the battlefield. Slightly better dressed, it must be said.

Christian follows their example, sinking into a low bow before the wooden throne and ignoring the way it exposes his neck to Ethan's sword should the Duke wish to finish what he started.

"Sir knight," the Queen says, calling upon him with her forked tongue and reptilian smile. "You are still here. Keen to be wed?"

The crowd laughs, court jesters all. Christian ducks his head. "I serve the throne, Your Highness, and do its bidding." And if the throne's will is best served through marriage to a commoner, then so be it. Christian can't help wonder a little at Kate's disdain for her handmaiden that she should dispose of her as if she were mere chattel.

Anastasia stands stiff and formal at the Queen's right, wearing a brocade dress with gold trim. Her thick brown hair has been covered with a veil pinned in place by small jade pins. Seen up close, she looks pale and sickly, and much too thin. Her eyes dart to his only once, briefly, as if to confirm that he is the same fool who came to plead for the Queen's mercy this morning. Christian can't help wonder if she too is disappointed to find him no more improved.

"Good Bishop," the Queen says, beckoning Flynn forward with a flick of the hand. "Will you officiate so that our young lovebirds may become man and wife? I can sense their enthusiasm." The priest confirms that he is here for that purpose. It's not as though he could deny the Queen. Since both bride and groom are present and accounted for, he might as well perform the rite and keep from angering his earthly masters.

Christian is well aware of his bride's hand in his through the ceremony, the bone-white fingers resting like a sparrow's claws in the crook of his palm. Anastasia's skin is very cool; this doesn't bode well for their wedding night. Christian repeats the vows when he is bid, the court's eyes like daggers upon him. He's sure Ethan is still fingering his sword hilt, perhaps contemplating how much displeasure he'd attract if he were to interrupt. A duel would be welcome - it might warm Christian's blood a little more than the sight of his betrothed standing meek and sullen before him.

Flynn's voice echoes around the silent hall: "Do you, Anastasia of Steele, take Sir Christian Grey for you lawful wedded husband, to have and hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death do you part, according to God's holy ordinance?"

Anastasia nods.

"My lady, you must speak-"

"I will answer for her," the Queen interjects.

"Your Highness, that is highly irregular-," Flynn protests and a flare of hope is kindled in Christian's breast. If she does not consent, perhaps he can extricate himself from this farce.

"Have I not said?" Kate shows teeth when she smiles. "Anastasia does not speak."

Christian feels the light pull of his bride's hand, a retreat begun before she remembers herself and her position here. His fingers tighten around hers all the same. He doesn't intend to be made a fool of by some baseborn trollop. A shard of ice crunches in his voice when he speaks: disbelief transfigured into fury. "She is mute?"

The Queen still grins. "She is a dear friend. And you are a lucky, lucky man, Sir knight." Her gaze drifts, as if wearied by his query: "Bishop, finish your toil." Her voice drips poison.

Hope is snuffed out like a candle. "You have," Flynn sighs, "declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your vows and fill you both with his blessings." He may as well be reading a funerary rite for all the exultation in his voice. "What God has joined, man must not divide. Amen." The Bishop crosses himself. Some, but not all, of the nobles present follow his example. The Queen startles them all out of their silence when she begins to applaud.

It is a rising tide, a ground-swell of mockery and Christian stands at its center as immobile as he is trapped. He can see Ethan's sneer and the glinting ruby on his livery chain. Flynn's furrowed brows, lips pursed in what might be an apology. (Unwanted, Christian tells himself, and far too late.) And then there is the bride who has not moved or spoken since she was brought out to serve as his ball and chain. Christian grips her hand tighter and turns to face the throne.

"Your Highness!" His voice pitched high, he just barely manages to make himself heard. "Your Highness, if I may... with your leave, I would take my young wife to Lorcastle tonight, to introduce her to my mother-"

"-aye," Ethan snorts, "just say you cannot wait for the bedding!"

Laughter rises from the gallery. Anastasia flinches where she stands.

Amused, the Queen gives her accord. "I trust the next time I see you, Sir knight, you shall have sons of your own: good loyal soldiers to fight for the Crown!"

The next time she sees him, Christian vows silently, it will be with the sharp end of his blade at her throat. He shakes Anastasia by the arm as they leave the hall, the better to get her attention. "Get your travel clothes. We have a day's ride ahead and no time to waste." The girl lingers, wide-eyed and tight-lipped. A chestnut strand of hair has blown free of her braids and curls against the curve of a rosy cheek. Christian nudges her with a sharp hand: "Go."

Taylor waits by the east gate, three horses saddled and ready to take them far from this hellhole. "Alone?" he asks, handing Christian a cloak. "Lost your wife already?"

"Would that I could," he mutters.

Despite Christian's hopes, Anastasia doesn't dither. She comes to them with arms loaded with satchels and nearly trips in a divot on her way into the courtyard. The satchels fly loose. Christian watches her right herself in midair, a strangely graceless attempt that lets fall a heavy leather pouch the length of a horse's leg. Steel glints in the moonlight when Christian slides the sword from its sheath. He'd draw it all the way free and unravel the silk cloth from its pommel, were it not for Anastasia wrenching the scabbard from his hands. It's something of a miracle that she can even lift the damn thing, waif-thin as she is.

Christian struggles to cover his surprise with a shallow laugh. "Easy, wife. We've only just pledged to share our worldly goods - and you have sworn obedience." Anastasia curls around the sword with a jealous glare; clearly that is not what will persuade her. Frustration mounts; not only is she dumb and simple, but she is stubborn, too. Christian heaves a breath. "Give it to Taylor. He will bind it to the saddle."

"Evening, m'lady." Taylor's sheer brutish size is enough to temper the flash of willfulness. Anastasia gives up the sword and hugs her sides instead. Once he's done, Taylor holds out his hand to her. "Give you a leg up, m'lady?"

"She's mute," Christian interjects when the silence hangs a beat too long. He mounts his own horse without looking back. "Help her up."

Despite her cumbersome skirts, Anastasia ducks under Taylor's arm to seize her courser by the saddle and lever herself up by her own means. The white mare whinnies, protesting the commotion going on around her with a toss of mane.

Christian's impatience curls his lips into a sneer. "Try not to get yourself killed," he says, and drives his own horse out of the gate. He'll trust Anastasia Steele to follow, though should she fall behind and become lost along the way, he can't say he'd mind. This is the bargain he made: matrimony for a chance to keep his head on his shoulders. And still somehow it feels like he's been taken in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

The big one rouses her from sleep with a heavy hand upon her sleeve. Not cruel, but enough to scare her awake. "M'lady-" becomes the battering ram that nearly topples her from the saddle. Panicked, Anastasia's heels tighten in the stirrups and the horse whinnies, starting up on its hind legs in protest. Grateful as she is that Lord Grey allowed her to ride as a man, however immodest it may be, it's still a terrifying few moments before Ana can get her mare back to all fours, heart pounding a restless tattoo in her chest as her husband's manservant tries to capture the reins in his big fists. He does, though, cooing to the beast to soothe her righteous frustration. For her part, Anastasia is left to gasp and tremble, and finally to dismount on knees as soft as velvet. The ground feels spongy underfoot and her shoes sink deep into the muck. After a day's all but uninterrupted travel, she feels her heart crumble at this last humiliation. Grey could have held out his hand to her, even offered a word of warning. But perhaps that's expecting too much.

Her husband stands silhouetted in the doorway of a wooden house, watching her with grave disappointment. He's seen the whole incident and looks no better pleased with her than he did in Stonemarsh; God only knows what he must make of her now. "Come inside," he says, no kinder than if he were speaking to a dog. Anastasia hesitates - her sword is still hung from the saddle, and no one has thought to tell her where she's been brought, this could be a house of ill repute - but Christian duty wins out over fear. She follows him past the small, narrow doorway into a wood-roofed dwelling only about as large as Kate's new throne room.

The warm glow of a blazing hearth hits her first. The entryway is bright with its amber flames, the scent of pine creeping forth from a single, crackling log. She makes out a large, ornate table at the far end, and carpets that have seen better days stretching their woven, frayed ends as far as the front door. With some delay, she realizes she is tracking mud into the house and makes to retreat. The gesture is cataloged; Grey doesn't let her get away with cowardice: "Not the palace you were expecting?" he mocks. Her husband's face looms close, eyes blazing like molten steel. "If you prefer to sleep outside with the horses..."

"Christian? My son, is that you?" A woman's voice curbs the cruel slant of his interrogation before it can become an order. Anastasia's heart pounds no slower for the interruption. She looks up at the creaking of wooden steps to see the speaker descend. Her hair is uncombed, still in tresses bound with ribbons, but there can be no mistake: the lady of the house has come to meet them, pulling a thinning robe tighter around herself.

"Mother," Grey says, "I am returned."

Anastasia watches relief wash across the woman's aged face as she embraces her son. The resemblance is uncanny, but Christian stands taller than his mother by at least a head. In his arms, Lady Grey seems fragile, diminished. Bard songs have called her fair and wise, with virtues all young maids should aspire to; celebrations of her nuptials are said to have lasted a fortnight because the guests were so enamored with her handsome face. This is the woman who was nearly queen of England; who might have sat Kate's throne - it is not until her eyes find Anastasia's that she seems restored to that former glory.

"And who is this?" Brows arch with the query, a glance cast leisurely over a prize that is found wanting. Anastasia's blood rushes to her cheeks. She remembers herself, curtsying awkwardly.

"Let us sit," Christian temporizes, but his mother will have none of it.

Lady Grey disentangles herself from his arms: "Who is she, Christian? You know I care nothing for secrets." Ana wonders at her own appearance; her braid is no longer neat and tidy and she can feel strands of hair billowing around her face. Is there dirt on her cheeks? Does she look as rough and unkempt as her new husband?

"This," Christian sighs, "this is my new wife, Mother." Those two words seem wrenched from Grey's mouth like teeth. He doesn't look at Anastasia and it's just as well: one pair of eyes scrutinizing her every flaw is more than enough. Disgust perches on his lips when he adds, "the Queen insisted." There can be no mistaking his displeasure at the indignity: he did the Queen's bidding but he's no happier for it than if he'd been ordered to don a jester's many-belled hat.

Anastasia wonders if Kate weighed his resentment when she had them joined in marriage. When they were girls still playing with dolls and embroidery needles, Kate was always the clever one; she wouldn't have thrown Anastasia into the lion's maw without thinking first of her well-being. It is Anastasia who cannot yet see her plan. She must learn trust.

A hand clasps the thick fabric of Christian's doublet. His mother's eyes shine in the darkness of the room, hope palpable in her voice. "For Mia?"

Grey shakes his head.

"For Elliot, then?" Lady Grey searches her son's gaze. "You are wed so he may return from exile?"

"I am wed as a token of my loyalty to the Crown," Christian tells his mother, bitter. "And it is worse still than you imagine."

"How can it-"

Christian doesn't let her finish. His lips press into a tight line. "She does not speak."

Watching Lady Grey's eyes go wide with dismay is more painful than the ache between her thighs after so many hours astride a horse. Anastasia ducks her head, but it's too late. There are muddy tracks across the floor: her doing, her mistake. Perhaps they will allow her brush and bucket; this is one foible she can remedy. Her absent voice is not so easily mended, for all that prayer and foreign doctors have struggled with the task. She starts when Lady Grey calls her name. Mother and son are both looking at her, fixing her with their noble disdain and the fire no longer feels like a haven from the cold night, but seems to have become some sort of doorway into hell. Tears spring to her eyes unbidden and she tries to blink them away. This is her lot. She can't escape God's will.

Or Kate's.

"Well..." Lady Grey clears her throat, intent on rallying to the task however fetid it might be. "Have you supped?"

At first Ana thinks the question is asked of her, like some cruel jape, but Christian answers for them both: "We took a little bread and cheese on the way. I wouldn't say no to a leg of lamb..."

"To be sure, but with what coin?" Lady Grey huffs, shaking her head. "We will feast your wedding tomorrow... There are still some merchants who will give me credit. For now, you will have to content yourself with pea soup and a cup of wine." But first, she tells her son unceremoniously, he is to bathe. He stinks. It's not the Anastasia hadn't noticed, but she thought that telling him would rouse his anger. Lady Grey only gets a barked laugh for her troubles. Her son's loud footsteps fade as they ascend up the stairs and into the shadowed depths of the house.

Anastasia watches him go, feeling at once allayed and bereft.

"'scuse me, m'lady," says Taylor, coming up behind her with their things. Anastasia flattens her back against the unpainted doorframe to let him pass. She is still wary of stepping further inside, for all that Christian's manservant seems to have no such qualms and his boots are no cleaner. She makes out her sword among the satchels he hefts just as Taylor's gaze finds their hostess'. "Oh, 'evening, Lady Grey. A tardy hour to be awake..."

"Tardier still for travel," quips Christian's mother, looking at once weary and amused. "Will lock up? Good. Lady Anastasia," the title is undeserved, but offered without derision, "come aid me in the kitchens, won't you?"

Those are six words that Lady Grey likely never imagined herself saying. They sit poorly on her tongue, but the request is more of a command and it moves Ana from her hideout as sure as any blade. Lady Grey doesn't wait to be heeded. She leads the way into the shadowy corners of the house, where any pretense of wealth has been utterly stripped. There are just three solitary clay pots upon a shelf, with another hung over the smoldering cinders in the hearth - this is to be their supper. Lady Grey frees a stoker from its iron slot to stir the dying flames. She doesn't add another log to the blaze: it seems the Greys are too poor to squander wood. It is a sobering thought

"You may take off your shoes," she tells Anastasia. "There is a bar of soap and water, yes, there..." A bucket of clear well-water rests beside the kitchen table, only a foot away from a loaf of dry rye bread half-covered by a strip of cloth. Their eyes go to it at the same time. "Please," Lady Grey says, albeit a little tightly. "Help yourself."

Ana refrains. She can't make out if that's an invitation or the bitter bite of scorn for daring to covet a meal that is not hers to enjoy. Her stomach rumbles audibly. She sees Lady Grey expel a long breath and knows she's made the wrong call by dithering. No one ever taught her fear of the switch, but it flares in her breast all the same, though she thinks she might be able to outrun her mother-in-law should it come to that. Grey, on the other hand, won't give her the chance. Mercifully, he's gone to wash himself clean of the stench of the road, leaving Ana at his mother's mercy.

"We do not stand on ceremony here, my dear," Lady Grey explains unenthusiastically. "Frankly, we cannot afford it."

She says this as though it is no more secret than the coming of rain when there is cloud in the sky. The fall of the House of Grey is legendary by now. Everyone knows of Lord Carrick the Usurper, who had the old King murdered and took his place. At Kate's court in Stonemarsh, they call him the Eleven Days King, and that's just one of his milder sobriquets. A war was waged to remove him: Kate's armies won, Carrick's did not and the Usurper died. Now the Greys reap the fruits of that defeat in this stone-and-wood hovel while Kate's brother rules their ancient castle. Ana watches Lady Grey set the table, her gnarled hands too pale, her manners awkward. Once upon a time she was a nobleman's daughter, wed to a worthy man with many lands and jewels. Now she is destitute, her children little more than castoffs.

It begs the question why she has not retired to a nunnery; a place in a distant convent somewhere cannot be more expensive than the keeping of this house. Would seclusion not be easier?

The Greys may not stand on ceremony, but they still eat in the front room, their modest spread illuminated by the glow of the hearth glinting off polished brass. Ana hooks her ankles around the chair legs as she sits, bare feet washed clean and cold despite the soft, frayed carpet underneath the table. Lady Grey fills her cup with wine, then water. "Do you have any brothers and sisters?"

Ana shakes her head. No siblings, no parents, only an uncle in the North whose name she keeps to herself not because she is wary of speaking it but because she wouldn't be understood. Perhaps that's for the best. It cannot hurt to have a place to flee to, in case - in case things should turn awful.

"Christian tells me you were the Queen's lady-in-waiting," Lady Grey presses, "you must know her well..."

Though no question has been asked of her this time, Ana can only nod. _Well_ is one way to put it; they were nursed at the same breast, accomplices in the bedchamber and in the gardens of Kate's childhood home. They learned dance and beauty and sorrow together, vowed to always be in each other's confidence until the end. But life happens, one king dies and another rises in its place, and people change. Kate was always destined for greatness. Royal blood courses in her veins. Only a false friend would condemn her for the choices she has made since taking the throne.

Conversation around the table is slow when only one party can speak and the rest are too weary, too unwilling - or simply unable to join in. Ana casts a glance at her sullen husband only to find him engaged in his plate. He eats well; a man of his stature and strength cannot afford to be sparing with his meals. Yet watching him only makes the last cinders of her own failing appetite go cold in her belly. She eats a little of the watery pea soup and less of the bread, mostly to satisfy Lady Grey that she does not mean insult. To her surprise, her mother-in-law musters a tight smile, breaking the silence after a while. "You must be tired. And no wonder! You have had a long journey. If you wish to retire..." She trails off. All gathered around the table, from Taylor to Ana and her husband, take to pretending their thoughts did not all flee in the same indecorous direction. It is an empty struggle: Ana's wedding vows are worthless if the marriage has not been consummated. Grey will want his due.

Christian's goblet smacks the table and Ana nearly jumps out of her chair. Where is her sword?

Would it do her any good to find it?

"_After_ you have helped me with the washing up," Lady Grey interjects before her son can speak.

Ana doesn't have to be told twice. Scrubbing plates is hard work and her wrinkling fingers shake badly, but she knows it is a reprieve, unearned and offered only because Lady Grey must see what a worthless bride she makes. It's time to get her thoughts in order. Lady Grey lets her linger for a good half hour in the kitchens before it is clear to them both that Ana is simply looking for ways to stretch out the minutes.

"Enough... time to put out the candle."

For a moment, Ana thinks Lady Grey might say something more, impart some womanly wisdom at this late hour, but her mother-in-law only purses her lips and drenches the room in shadow. Ana can hide in the kitchen and wait for Christian to find her or she can go to his bedchamber and face the reality of her new life head-on.

She climbs the steps alongside her new mother feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter. The fire in the hearth has been snuffed out and the house is as cold and silent as a tomb.

"The last door on the right," Lady Grey tells her firmly. She hovers in mournful silence for a long moment, but eventually she shakes her head. Without a goodnight, without a word of kindness, she slips into her own room. A moment later, Ana hears the door latch tight. It will be of no use to beg for her aid: Lady Grey does not wish to be disturbed.

Ana picks up her feet and eases open the last door on the right. At first glance and in the dark, all she can see is that it, like the rest of the house, isn't very large. The roof slopes to one side, and shuttered windows shake with the evening wind. The only furnishing within is a large four poster. The only figure within is her husband. Ana feels a cold shiver ripple down her spine as she steps inside, letting the door creak closed behind her. Christian is already abed, his naked, viciously scarred chest visible between pillow and coverlet. It's his eyes she latches onto for direction; in the gloom of evening, they seem as black as obsidian. He is as still as a statue.

"Do you mean to stand there until morning?" he snorts. Ana doesn't dare flinch. She imagines his hands around her neck, under her clothes. It is enough to petrify her with fear. If it shows, then Grey is not impressed. "Suit yourself." And with that, he rolls over onto his side, pulling the blankets high to cover his shoulders.

He has not ordered her to undress, or thrown her upon the bed as she has seen men do with serving wenches at Kate's bawdier feasts. He does not look at her again. In the dark, with only slivers of moonbeam to guide her, Ana undoes her dress with quick, deft fingers, throwing only the odd glance to the bed to make sure Christian is not looking. Foolish modesty: it is his right to look. She can hear his breaths, too quick, too deliberate, and knows he is still awake even if he is pretending otherwise. When she is finished, she circles the bed to the other side and sits uneasily upon the mattress. Christian's clothes lie in a pile by the window, a dagger placed upon the bundle as if to mock her.

He is so sure she will not defend herself against him that he has not even bothered to conceal his weapons.

Ana thinks of unsheathing the blade and slitting his throat in his sleep. Let him sneer at her then. She could claim it was done in her own defense, but what good would that do when she is wed to the brute lying beside her, his prisoner before God and the law? No court would give her justice, let alone remedy. In any event, she wouldn't dare, not now that she knows his mother's face and the sound of her voices. She can only wait, wide-eyed, staring up at the ceiling while her shift sticks to her sweating skin and Christian slowly drifts to sleep at her right. His snores are loud growls that Ana blesses for their loud pitch; she is naïve enough to think they'll keep her awake until morning. She only needs to rest her eyes a moment. That's all. A moment couldn't hurt.

When next she blinks, it is already morning and the light creeping through the shutters seems crisp with rain.

Her bedside is empty. Both Christian and his clothes have vanished. Unhappily, the room itself is much the same as she'd imagined while creeping along the walls in the darkness last night: bare and unwelcoming - her new life in a nutshell.

Anastasia dresses herself in yesterday's dress. She has no notion of the hour, but her husband will not want her dawdling in bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Those warnings for non-consensual sex at the beginning? Yeah, this is where they start being relevant. Skip this chapter if that makes you uncomfortable. **

* * *

**Chapter three**

Christian has been patient for three days. He hasn't touched her, hasn't so much as given her a reason to flinch as if struck. (She does anyway, stupid girl.) And all the while he has to put up with the men in Lorcastle leering at her and nudging his sides as if to say _bet she keeps your cock warm at night, don't she? _They make up bawdy songs about her at the tavern. Christian stops going there for his ale, starts walking the fields instead. If he were still a Lord's son, the common folk would think twice before lampooning his wife with crass japes and cruel ditties, but whatever Bishop Flynn might like to believe those days are long gone. Now Christian is no more than a hedge knight with barely enough money left to feed himself and his aged mother. He only has a squire because Taylor is too devoted for his own good. Any other man would have taken his leave of a pauper by now and gone to try his fortunes elsewhere.

Not Taylor. Taylor will sit with him on the mossy hill and watch the distant towers of Castle Grey against the fading sun without saying a word.

"I'm done," Christian says, rising. He clamps a hand to Taylor's shoulder and starts back towards town on his own, every yard cementing his resolve. He has been patient; he has waited three days and three nights and still Anastasia remains dour and taciturn. There are times when he will catch her eying the sword she brought with her from Stonemarsh. Taylor left it propped up against the hearth still in its sheath and Christian hasn't had the will to move it since. He's watched Anastasia glance at it and wondered what she's thinking: she's a little slip of a girl, it's doubtful she could even swing the blade.

Whatever she is, however flawed and unhandsome, she is his. Christian finds her stirring the fire when he enters. There is a clattering of pots in the kitchen - his mother, trying to concoct a supper out of thin air and rotting leftovers. Anastasia should be helping her, not standing around empty-handed like an ungrateful wretch. It is his fault: he should have taken charge the moment her hand was placed into his, told her that everyone pulls their weight in his home. Sloth has no place here.

She stands when Christian enters; at least they taught her respect while she served as Kate's handmaid. Her wide eyes aren't enough to stop him grasping her arm. "Come with me." She gives a small, aborted sound of panic, but she is too frail to pull free of his hold. _She doesn't eat enough_, he thinks grimly, _perhaps she is ill_. The notion is not enough to stop him towing her up the stairs and into their bedchamber. He doesn't lock the door behind them; her face is plenty contorted with fear as it is. The grisly sight only makes Christian feel anger.

"On the bed." His hand points, as if she is deaf, too, and cannot understand him.

For a long, protracted moment, he wonders if he will have to help her to her back or pin her wrists, but then Anastasia crawls upon the bed on her own, hoisting her skirts around her thin legs. Her hands clasp over her breast in prayer. Now is not the time for piety. Christian grasps her shoulders tightly and rolls her over onto her front. There. Anastasia's dress tangles around her knees, a flash of ankle visible just over the edge of the bed. Under the thick mane of her chestnut hair, the back of her neck is stained pink. (That's not excitement.)

She proves pliant despite the curl of tension in her shoulders and only flinches a little when Christian's cold fingertips rub between her folds. She is untouched and so snug, denying him with her body even though her mouth remains as silent as the tomb. That will have to do. Her heat is enough to stir his arousal.

Christian undoes his breeches hastily, propping himself up above her with one hand on the bed and the other fisting his turgid length. He feels her start when he brushes the tapered head against her warm buttocks, but the effort is swiftly halted. Even that small, involuntary shiver of resistance inflames him. Christian would never let anyone treat him thus, but Anastasia must know she cannot hope to fight him - that she should even try is enough to awaken his passions.

He spits into his palm, spreading moisture onto his prick as he slowly cants his hips forward, pressing forth into Ana's body. She tenses with a whimper. He tries to go slowly, but she is so tight and so warm and he cannot help himself for long. His lips find the back of her neck as he begins to rut. It's sweet, sweet agony to feel her tremble around him, the last frayed remnants of struggle giving way to obedient assent. This is the way it must be. Christian has been patient.

With the blood of their enemies still staining their armor, he promised his father sons to carry forth the family name. He has promised his mother that he will redeem their lost fortunes and rescue his siblings from exile.

Duty and honor lie heaped upon his shoulders like stone pillars. Anastasia is his wife and she will become his vessel even if he must bend her like molten steel.

His passion burns quickly, plowing into her with rough, ferocious plunges until he can hold back no longer. The pleasure of release gusts through him like a storm, fingers kneading into a soft, pale hip as he empties his seed; it's been too long. For all her aborted laments, Ana smothers her discomfort into the sheets with little show of agony. In this, too, she seems well-trained.

Christian withdraws from her, quickly lacing himself back into his breeches. His wife barely stirs, yet though her silence should be customary by now, there seems to be something in reproachful in her keeping so perfectly still. His breaths are a little short when he returns to the bed with a wet rag to wipe down the mess between her thighs and inspect the damage. There is only a little blood on the sheets.

He draws her skirts down over her mottled hips before he closes the door on the sight of her unmoving body. It would be easier if she were crying or cursing his name; her stillness is unnatural, inhuman. It will not shift from behind his eyes or give him peace as he comes down the stairs to find his mother standing in the kitchen door.

"You're not going out again?" she asks. Something in her eyes tells him she knows why he might want to. A wave of humiliation threatens to engulf him.

"I will sup at the inn." There is always someone there with a joke and a song to take Christian's mind off his troubles. That the jokes are often poor and the ale is watered down can't be helped. They do not live in the land of plenty anymore.

It is not a bad thing he did; he is Anastasia's husband, he has certain rights - of which he simply chose to avail himself tonight. Why should it matter that he could make out tears in her eyes as he plowed inside her like a raw youth with his first woman? She might have moved to let him stroke the soft curve of her breast or the hard pebbled nub that crowns her folds; if only she hadn't made her dislike of him so palpable over the past days, he might have been kinder. The fault is hers. It must be.

All the cheap, sour wine his money may buy cannot cure the acrid taste of that vicious falsehood.

Taylor finds him slumped against a tavern table in the morning, a stray cat with matted fur licking into his cup. She runs off with a mewl, no more impressed with him than his wife. "Your mother will be pleased to know her coin was well spent." The barb is earned: there's so little money left and Christian has squandered it on liquor.

He washes his face in a horse's trough, pretending he cannot see the worms at the bottom of the basin or hear the scullions mocking him as they pass. His stomach threatens to upend last night's meal, but there was so little of it he can't do much more than heave dryly as he drops to the dusty ground. Horses wicker restlessly in their stalls. They may protest and blame all they want; Christian's purse is empty and it's only a matter of time before he has to choose between selling the mounts and roasting them on a spit.

"Is she awake yet?" Christian hears himself ask. He does not think of his mother.

For a base-born squire, Taylor is quick to decipher his meaning. "Haven't seen her," he tells Christian with a shrug. "Lady Grey might've said you didn't come back to the house last night..."

He couldn't. The thought of facing Anastasia, of slipping into bed beside her as if nothing had happened, proved too much for Christian's much-vaunted fortitude. He rubs a damp palm over his face, the slow pull of calluses reminding him of his father's sword, now lost, and the battles waged for an ungrateful kingdom.

"She will forgive you," Taylor says, lifting a heavy hand to grasp Christian's shoulder.

"Will she? I only ripped her from everything she knows and took her to my bed like some–" he hunts for the words, spits them out as it they were poison, "—like some tavern wench." He has no wealth to temper the hurt, no soft words of poetry to give her in exchange. A rooster cackling in the hedgerow is the only music in this wretched hell.

Taylor sighs, climbing to his feet. "Couldn't be helped. The Queen herself bid you marry."

And so she did, but she left out the part where Christian was to be heartless and cruel to his young bride. It isn't Ana's fault that she cannot speak.

He finds her not in their bedchamber but in the kitchens, scrubbing blood off the sheets. Not so slothful after all, it seems. She starts badly when he enters. _What did you expect_, Christian wonders, _that she would be glad to see you after what you did? _Even the most loyal hound learns to bite if it is kicked often enough.

"Good morning" sits awkward on his tongue, words insufficient for the biting chill of Ana's gaze upon him. "I thought to go hunting today... with Taylor. Buying our supper at the market is more costly than we can afford at the moment and I am unafraid of Ashlake and his hounds. The forest belongs to all men, whatever the Queen and her yellow-bellied lackeys may have to say..." His wife remains unmoved. A rosy drop of water trickles from her fingers to the floor. "I will be gone until sundown," Christian adds, for all the good that it may do him.

Anastasia thrusts out her chin. She understands; she simply does not care.

Lady Grey is only a little more sensitive to the news. "I thought to stop in at the priory myself. Mia hasn't had a visit from her family in days..." The barb sticks like an arrow through the joint of his breastplate. It is a reminder that he has been neglectful in his duty to his poor, imprisoned sister.

"Take her along with you," says Christian, pointing to the kitchen door, still slightly ajar. The rasp of bristles against soggy cloth has stilled momentarily.

His mother takes no notice: "I will do no such thing."

"I hardly think she will be surprised to discover the runt of litter in a prison cell..."

"I will no such thing," Lady Grey scowls, "because Lady Ana can hardly stand." Her eyes blaze with accusations only restrained for the sake of propriety. Sometimes Christian forgets that she was married at fifteen and bore Lord Carrick a son within her first year as his wife; the business of matrimony has long laid its secrets down for her.

"She is no _lady_," Christian shoots back, mulish, a volley that is sure to fall short of its mark.

He knows it in the pursing of his mother's lips, the sting of her palm against his cheek. "You will not speak so of your wife. You are the son of a great lord - of a king - and you will remember that before you return to us tonight." _Or else you will remain gone_ she does not add; she doesn't have to.

Her words cut to the quick, more painful than any slap. They do not give him peace for many hours, not as he saddles his horse and takes off at a gallop and not as he slows his pace in the thicket of trees that separates Lorcastle from Castle Grey. He is a lord's son, yes, but should he show his face in his father's hall, he would be run out with gibes and blows. The Queen cares nothing for the ancient blood that courses in his veins.

Denuded tree branches sway listlessly overhead, shaken by crisp autumnal gales. The wood is cold and damp with rain, horse hooves slogging torpidly through mud, not a hare or bird in sight. Taylor clumps along beside him, chewing an apple likely pilfered from the marketplace. He has kept his silence until now, but Christian can all but hear the questions perched on the tip of his tongue. "What is it, squire?"

Taylor's chortling laugh mellows his temper. "You _are_ in a sulk. I thought so..." The last thing Christian cares to hear is how to win the heart of fair Anastasia. Taylor's conquests in the village aside, his wife did run off with some freshly-knighted boy only a handful of months ago. He hardly has reason to speak of marital bliss - and yet that does not stop him: "When she finally flees your bed, do you expect Kate will send an army to avenge her honor or merely a handful of assassins?"

Christian all but falls from his saddle. "She won't run off."

"Aye," Taylor says, "because Castle Grey cannot be reached on foot..." It only looms ahead like the enduring specter of Christian's every failure. There are times he will watch the crumbling walls and wonder if he means to take it back or tear it down stone by stone until all that is left is a heap of dusty rubble inhabited by old ghosts. Both dreams are equally implausible.

"She won't," Christian insists, because the castle is not the sole unsteady mirage on his horizon. There's always room for self-deception.

He returns to Lorcastle many hours after dusk to find a quiet, empty house waiting to receive him; his mother has already taken to her bed. Anastasia is hiding somewhere. Taylor, for his part, has chosen the tavern for the night but Christian is sure to be bad company, so to home it is.

The heat of the hearth proves welcome relief from the evening chill. Mud drips from his soggy boots as he tugs them off. His feet ache, back throbbing from sitting a saddle all day. It would feel less like a wasted day if he had brought back a stag, but the most he could manage was a couple of squirrels and a broken-winged quail. Roasted in their own fat they may be enough for one meal, the bones left behind for soup. This is not the life he'd hoped to give his wife, never mind his mother in her old age.

Tomorrow, he will visit Mia. He will rouse early and speak courteously to Lady Grey. He will go offer the strength of his limbs to shrewd Jack Hyde, the village smith, and give up this nonsense about reclaiming his birthright.

Lordships, castles – all of this means little when he can't even feed his family.

The fire crackles, smoke dancing around the stone hearth like ghosts in stories of old. Christian follows a wisp with his gaze, tracing its path to the sword propped gracelessly against the hearth. Anastasia has not come to retrieve it since she was brought here and Taylor has other duties. Perhaps she would enjoy seeing her blade mounted above the mantel. Seen up close, its scabbard could do with a wax polish. Christian can't help glance around himself for witnesses as he unfurls the long strip of leather around the hilt. Paying lip service to the vows he was compelled to take is one thing, but this feels too much like invading his wife's privacy.

He only means to steal a quick glance at the blade, perhaps divine its owner; whoever it belonged to must matter a great deal to Anastasia for her to carry the sword all the way from Stonemarsh to Lorcastle.

A hasty peek cannot hurt, Christian tells himself, unfurling the leather and the thin sheath of silk beneath it. Never has a blade been kept with better care than this. It must be a trick of light, for as the cloth falls away with a whisper, he can't help recognize the mother-of-pearl ouroboros chasing its tail on the whittled pommel. The grip is carved and cool under his fingertips, ribbons of steel shaped by the tight clutch of generations past. His breath catches.

Christian's fist knows this sword. It has clutched it before.

It is by chance that he parses out the echo of shuffling footsteps on the lowest step; the sound of company rousing him from his stupor. Christian turns to find his wife standing in the shadows clad only in her thin nightgown, eyes wide and gleaming amber in the firelight. He tries for calm, for composure. There must be a sound, rational explanation to this. And yet as he rises to face her, his voice proves as sharp as the steel in his grasp, freshly pulled free of its scabbard.

"Why," Christian grits out, "do you have my father's sword?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter four**

His eyes blazing like smoldering timber, Grey stands silhouetted against the hearth fire with her sword in hand and his grim mouth pursed into a tight, acrid line. _Well, terrific_, muses that small, oddly disengaged part of Ana. She's going to die here and Lady Grey will have to burn the carpets because blood never comes out of wool this fine. It takes her a moment to realize she is giving up the war before battle has been waged; is this what Kate taught her? Cowardice? Grey's sword drags heavily against the floor, a sharp, stinging hiss of metal and stone, more like a mason's chisel or the vile twist of bone when Ana's ankle twists as she backs up into the wall. Kate would be vexed to see her like this.

At least Ana has been clever enough to put the table between herself and her lord husband, though it isn't going to offer much by way of shelter if Grey decides to strike her down.

"Answer me!" he shouts, animated by the violent tremors of his fury. His shadow on the floor looms large and monstrous, but he is just a man standing there, livid with rage. _Just a man_, Ana reminds herself even as she gropes at the wall for support. The stone is rough and uneven behind her back: no matter how her nails may scrape at it, she'll die before she tears out a chunk big enough to lob at her husband.

Clobbering him with her bare fists is out of the question. It doesn't take a scholar to see how grossly outmatched she is when faced when an unbridled warrior. So Ana does the only thing she can: she lifts a trembling hand and points at her throat as if to say _I can't answer you, you fool_. He can't have forgotten already; abusing her for her silence has been his favorite pastime since they were wed. When he isn't abusing her with his—thing—he's doing it with his eyes and his sniggers, the way she catches him looking at her sometimes, like he can't believe the magnitude of his misfortune.

Grey can rage and growl and wave his sword until he hits something, but it won't get him any answers. Even a brute like him might understand that.

"Can you spell?"

The question offends, but Anastasia finds it in her to nod. Yes, she can spell. She was writing poems and translating Latin tracts when little boys like Christian were still fighting in the mud. Just because she's a woman of low birth does not mean she is simple. She just barely manages to bite back a sneer as her husband rummages for ink and parchment in one of the many satchels stacked against the wall. The lot is thrust down onto the table like a gauntlet being pushed her way.

Grey's eyes are stony. The sword still dangles from one hand, more like an extension of his arm than a weapon. He seems to have forgotten he is holding it until he notices her glancing at the blade.

"Well?" he queries sharply. "Tell me, woman!"

With shaking hands, Ana draws back a chair and sits. The last time she was given leave to put her thoughts to paper, war had been the bailiwick of songs and legends, of King Arthur's loyal knights and the old men who sat around the fire in Kate's castle and spoke of the way things used to be. Ana had believed herself worthy of committing their feats to paper while Kate and her other young ladies amused themselves with embroidery. She misses those summer days.

The lid on Grey's inkpot sticks to the bottle from too little use. Flaky bits of dried ink drizzle onto the table as Ana unstoppers the pot and dips in the sharp end of a swan feather. (Even in abject poverty, the Greys won't stoop to writing with a quill fashioned from a goose feather.)

_The sword was given to me_, she writes. _I did not steal it_. The thought of lying and claiming she hadn't known who it belonged to crosses her mind, but only fleetingly. The seal across the pommel leaves little doubt; much and more has been said of House Grey and its snake, and none of the court japes seem worthy of being repeated here. Disgrace may have turned Christian's family into the butt of cruel jokes but seeing her husband armed and dangerous is an effective deterrent against believing all that courtiers had to say of his cowardice. Anastasia dips the sharpened feathered again and ads another line: _Your hunt went well, I see._

"My—what?" Grey glances up from the page to search her face for the answer. He follows her gaze to the freshly slaughtered game as if seeing it piled grotesquely upon the table for the first time. "Hang the hunt. Who gifted you this sword?" Like a dog with a bone, he refuses to be thrown off the scent.

Ana sighs and dutifully returns to the page. Christian does not care to converse with her, which isn't so surprising: the other night showed her precisely how much Grey cares to know her as anything more than a vessel for his seed. The rest of the time, outside of the bedroom, she is to remain the burden he has been saddled with, unwanted and unacknowledged, the better to justify the hours he wastes elsewhere. _Well_, Ana thinks, _so be it_. He is welcome to spend every night from now on sulking in the tavern if he so pleases; she tells herself she had no need of a man like him anywhere near her.

And yet when Grey perches over the table and cants his head so comically in an attempt to decipher her writing upside down, something deep within her clenches tightly. He's just a man: a stupid, flawed man dragging along a sword because he can't bring himself to set it down. _Because_, Ana recalls, _the sword belonged to his father and it is all he has left of him_.

Kate would call her kind for the thought. It isn't that. So few people consider Ana capable of understanding what is being said around her that she has grown accustomed to taking their measure in silence; she can name a lost cause when she sees one.

"What do you mean Ethan of Ashlake gave it to you?" Grey asks, reading further down the page. "As a token... I don't understand." By the petulant puff of his sigh, she can tell it frustrates him to admit it. "Explain yourself."

Ana gestures him to a chair_. Sit, be patient, and I will._ She doesn't want to, but he won't give her leave to flee from this room until he knows all there is to know about the blade. Whatever quarrel he has with Ethan, he's welcome to chase the Duke to the ends of the earth and leave Ana in peace. She's of no consequence in this squabble between titled lords and ladies. All she's ever wanted was to please Kate, to make her proud. Now that she has discovered the so-called joys of marriage, she nurses an equally burning desire to eschew another night in Christian's bed. Of the two, she can't help feel the latter might be unlikely, so keeping him mild is her only hope.

_After the battle at Fallmount_, Ana pens_, I was sent by the Queen to help catalog the armor and armaments left to us. We did not know then that your brother would capitulate. We collected all we could: steel from the battlefield, timber and foodstuffs from the farms in our path. Kate thought me good with numbers, so I was given to tallying our dwindling supplies. Then came the hour of Victory. Ethan opened the armory doors to his knights and they helped themselves to whatever spoils they could find that still held some value._ She hesitates, her quill dripping ink onto the page. _It is a dangerous thing to be a woman, unmarried and alone among men who have just heard they are no longer bound for war. In my haste, I reached for your father's sword._

There is little compassion to be found in her husband's eyes and Ana doesn't bother looking. Her quill scratches the conclusion of that sad little tale in a crooked line: _The Queen's brother let me keep the weapon as plunder. I have not been parted from it since._

"And that's supposed to mean something?" Grey snorts. "This belonged to my father and his father's father; it is the rightful property of House Grey. You and your—_Bastard_ of Ashlake have no right to it!"

His vehemence may have been enough to melt Anastasia's knees, but as she's already sitting down, it's to so little purpose. She lifts a shoulder in a shrug, careful to keep her face blank of contradiction. They are married now, so any worldly goods in her possession are his by law. If it pleases him to think this stolen property rather than scraps of metal on a battlefield, that's his business. Ana sets down the quill. She has given him his answer.

Grey looks far from pleased. "Did you," he starts, voice cracking, "—did you happen to see who..." But Ana is already shaking her head. Everyone knows that Lord Carrick Grey died on the field of battle, but none saw the sword that pierced his heart. Ana can only add her ignorance to theirs.

Wood crackles in the hearth, its heat flaring sharp and sudden.

"If you knew," asks Grey, "would you say?" He is smiling wanly. Perhaps the brute is not so simple after all.

Christian doesn't wait for her answer. "Return to bed. I'll stay a while." He finds the scabbard and cloth on the floor where he discarded them earlier, hands almost reverently sheathing the blade. Does he imagine he is placing his fingers in the grooves worn by his father's stronger grip? Ana tries to intimate the yearning he must be feeling, but cannot; her own father left her in the care of a woman paid to feed and clothe her. When word reached court of his death, the void between them could grow no wider. There were no tears left to shed for a practical stranger.

Ana does not stand from her seat at the table, unsure if her legs could carry her up the stairs.

"I said—" Grey turns, frustrated, only to find her scribbling. His curiosity gets the better of him, for he quenches his dog-tired fury long enough to give her time to finish. "Why did my father claim the crown?" he repeats, looking up at Anastasia. "Did the Queen not tell you?"

Kate spoke of Carrick often and violently, but Ana knows enough of power to know it can be blinding. It is no secret that Kate took great dislike to her elder cousin well before the King's death; there was some matter of lands being divided unfairly, or her father's first love—rumors, all. The truth Kate kept to herself, nursing anger as though it was her birthright. Ana never knew how to distract her from the dark thoughts that would sometimes take hold; she always felt inadequate in that regard. Then the King died and every nobleman with a claim to the throne crowded to take his place. Kate was but a girl—she had no husband and her father was too ill to fight. Her bannermen would never have risen to support her pretensions were it not for Carrick's attempt to crown himself king without first consulting the Lords.

In haste, the Archbishop performed the task according to God's Holy Law but against the will of the people. It did not help that Castle Grey was within a two days' leisurely ride from Stonemarsh, or that Kate was apt to cast herself as a symbol of England herself, being taken against her will by a barbarous beast. She stirred the barons and their banners and descended on Lorcastle with an army greater than Carrick could have anticipated; the fool thought to meet her in battle at Fallmouth and did. It was there, on trampled flesh and rain-soaked dirt, that Ethan of Ashlake procured the ouroboros sword.

All this Anastasia already knows, but not what madness drove Carrick from his ancient castle into the misty plains of Fallmouth, its fields now drenched with English blood.

"He had the better claim," her husband insists stubbornly. "He was the King's second cousin, a Plantagenet descended from a bloodline so ancient he could have traced it back to Solomon and David before him. He would have been a worthy ruler—far more than your Queen Kate."

_But the nobles refused him_.

Grey takes one look at her scribbles and snorts. "What do you know of that?"

_Enough, my lord. I was Kate's handmaid for many years, long before the Usurper rose to—_

"Have a care how you speak of my father," Grey warns across the table before Ana can finish the thought. His voice is ice, but his eyes are tired, rimmed with shadows from far too little sleep. The smell of blood and soggy leaves clings to him from the hunt, doing little to improve his appearance.

_Your father_, Ana tries again, _was not well liked among the gentry. Why?_

Grey's shoulders sag. "Is a wolf well liked by other wild beasts? He was a better man than they and so they murdered him." His gaze journeys to the amber flames, features relaxing but far from peaceful. "Did you know it was I who bent the knee to Kate? I who knelt in the muck and the strewn, repulsive viscera of the fallen to offer the surrender of House Grey... My brother was fled by then and there was no one else to stop the slaughter." He inhales wetly: "I did it to protect my mother and sister from Kate's soldiers. Now they all think me a coward."

His mother does not; Ana has seen the warmth of Lady Grey's gaze when she speaks of Christian as a baby, a little boy, her hands working the dough to make lumps of dried, unsalted bread. She loves him dearly, whatever sacrifices have been made in her name.

"I surrendered," Grey sighs, "and it was all for naught. I bear the last rusty rapier in my father's armory and pay for my meals in coin while Ethan of Ashlake accuses my sister of witchcraft with impunity. She will burn to soothe his wounded ego."

This story Anastasia has pieced together on her own; Lady Grey might have refused to take her along to the priory, but she was kind enough to try and reassure Ana that her daughter was no devil whisperer. She had been courted, once, by a suitor who did not take kindly to being refused; it must have been someone with sway over the Church to persuade the new Prior to incarcerate a girl born of noble blood. Proof was manufactured from hearsay and rumor. "The only reason she still breathes," Lady Grey had clarified, "is that I have been paying the Prior to show mercy. Once the coin stops, so will his clemency."

"Why am I telling _you_ this?" Christian wonders aloud. "You'll only report back to Kate that I am as weak as she believes me to be... That's why you're here, isn't it? To be her spy?"

Ana is glad for the knot in her throat that keeps her from speaking. She doesn't reach for the quill. Grey could strike her for the impudence of secrecy, but he looks too fatigued for the task. Perhaps in the morning, when the burden of his failures no longer slumps his shoulders quite so low: he will regret having spoken of this once he's had time to mull it over. He is too mercurial to predict, but in this all men are the same. They do not want to be made a fool of in their own households.

"Play the mute," he growls. "I care not." And this, at least, has the appearance of truth. His footsteps smack the stairs heavily as he clambers upstairs, having after all decided against lingering in her company. Anastasia listens for the clanking of the door: it comes but a moment later, less like an invitation and more like a church bell signaling those rare, happy occasions when a wedding rather than a funeral is to feted.

With shaking hands, Ana taps the quill clean and stoppers the inkpot. The parchment she rolls up, for there is a clean side only lightly stained that can still be used. There is something contravening and courageous, it seems to her, about being awake while everyone else sleeps. The house is so quiet around her, even the fire is dying in the hearth, slowly leaching away even the last slivers of heat. No matter: Anastasia is amply buoyed by her own fortitude. She did not weep at Grey's questioning and she did not provoke him into a beating. Whatever tomorrow may reserve by way of punishment, tonight she is victorious.

It is that small seed of confidence that keeps her up until the small hours when the sun becomes a thin line of gold across the eastern sky and dung carts commence their foul journey through meandering streets. She tiptoes into the bedroom with care, so as not to wake her husband. By the garbled echo of his snores, it is fruitless to worry. He does not stir as she closes the door, nor is there movement in Lady Grey's chamber, either. Taylor did not return from the hunt with Christian, so by the time she is downstairs, there is no one left to stop her.

She is gone for hours, but the expedition is a fruitful one. She does not expect to be greeted with the clutch of brutal hands at her shoulders when she steps through the door, or the wild spray of Christian's blasphemes shouted against her mouth.

"Where did you run, you pox-ridden wench? Where?! I've had Taylor scouring the village for you all morning—" It is only then he deigns to note the purse of coin and the satchel in her hand. The expression upon his face would be comical if Ana weren't trapped between his body and the wall, two places so cold that they recall that night in bed, when his—thing—was working its way between her thighs.

Lady Grey glides to her feet, looking pale and shaky. "My dear, we thought... We feared the worst. Christian, let the girl breathe, won't you?"

"You took the game," Grey says, uncomprehending. He left two squirrels and a bird on the table as though they were offal and now he cares that they have disappeared? He truly is a man born to privilege. (This does not make him soft.)

Determined to keep from cowering, Ana presses the purse into his hands. It is heavy with coin: not much, but more than they had yesterday. The satchel she holds out to Lady Grey.

"Eggs and cheese? Where did you find the money?"

"She sold the game." For a brute, Grey catches on quickly. "But you couldn't have had made more than penny each for the squirrels..."

Ana nods. She has sold the meat at the tavern door, the skinned fur to a tradesman in the marketplace and the quail's sharp claws to the apothecary. The silver made from those transactions, she spent on eggs and cheese. _Only the cheese is for the eating_, she writes once Christian has retreated enough to give her room, _the eggs are for hatching_.

Taylor finds them all around the table, his labored breaths devolving to laughter when he hears of her exploits. "You'll need grain," he says, wiping wine from his lips with the back of a hand. "Chicks won't live off air and water, m'lady."

"Can they even hatch without a hen?" Christian is dubious, but Ana nods. She's seen it done before, in the kitchens of Stonemarsh Castle. Besides, there was no coin she could spare to buy a hen without compromising Mia's chances.

Taylor echoes her conviction: "Heat's all you need. A good hearth fire will do the trick nicely enough."

"Then you must go into the forest again," Lady Grey says, with an expectant glance at her son. Christian has yet to shift his cloudy gaze from the coin purse. "Or do you suppose your wife should do all the work around here?"

The response is immediate, if lacking its usual bite: "I don't suppose anything about my wife, Mother." Grey stands slowly, as if still cowed that Ana could manage such a feat. "Good with numbers, were you?" he asks. And before Anastasia can decide if it's a sneer or a compliment, he is buckling his rusty sword and swinging a quiverful of arrows around his shoulder. The ourobors blade is left in its sheath by the hearth. "Come along, Taylor."

His manservant belches loudly. "We'll strive for a boar for you, m'lady."

_Strive to come back alive_, Ana thinks, well aware that venturing on castle land is against Kate's law. Her brother won't hesitate to put Christian to death if caught. She cannot say when the thought of widowhood first stopped being less than her ideal. She makes to rise, to wave Christian goodbye from the door, but Lady Grey's hand upon hers stops her short.

"Thank you," she is told. "I know that... I am aware it can be quite difficult to adjust to married life. You would not be the first of your gender to find the task more unpleasant than expected. Or indeed that you would wish to flee your wifely duties... perhaps to find shelter in the bosom of your old family." Lips thinned by age and loss purse tightly. "Our lot in life is burdened by Eve's weakness: we reap the yield we sow." Propriety prevents her from saying much more, but Ana understands. Her hand frees itself slowly from Lady Grey's clutch.

_I have no other family_, Anastasia writes down. She does not think of Kate.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Just a quick note to say thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I do read all your comments and I love hearing your thoughts about Ana and Christian and their budding romance. Thank you for giving this story a chance. Belatedly, I wish you all happy holidays and a very happy 2013. Next chapter will be up in the new year!  
**

* * *

**Chapter five**

The chicks have hatched and still Jack Hyde won't give him the time of day. It feels like a lifetime ago that Christian sent him from Castle Grey for chasing after serving wenches. Lord Carrick would have severed his hands for taking Cook's daughter behind the stables, but Christian's counsel prevailed upon him. "Hyde is a fair smith," he'd said, speaking for what he'd felt had been the better interest of their armory. "He is good with hammer and anvil—and you are a fair magister, Father, I know you are. Do not act in haste." The virtue of a lowborn girl had never been much currency; Christian traded it for cheap and yet that small gesture of kindness has been forgotten, if it ever registered as such. Its memory does nothing to soften Hyde's heart when Christian comes to plead with him for work.

"Seen that wife of yours around the market," the smith says, spitting phlegm out into the blazing forge. "She's a looker." His eyes gleam like two black beads set deep in a soot-smudge face, dangerously perceptive. It wasn't so long ago he would've been flattered by Christian's consideration, by his mercy. Now he can afford to play games. "Not so chatty, though, is she?"

Christian bites back his ire. "No, she's not. About that apprenticeship-"

"She slow in the head?" Hyde grins, taking great pleasure in asking. He doesn't struggle to disguise how much he'd relish the affirmative.

There are many things to be said about Anastasia Steele: she's obstinate and secretive and Christian finds her stiff and cold on the rare occasions when he slides into bed beside her. She'll snare Taylor into helping her stir a pot in the kitchen and she'll gift him her rare smiles as he talks about hunting or war or the latest in a string of romantic escapades Christian neither cares for nor deigns to acknowledge, while her lawfully wedded husband gets only scowls and frosty nods. They lie together like brother and sister, a whole foot of empty space and nothing but cold linen between them. She is right to despise him.

Anastasia may be many things, but she is not slow.

"Go to hell," Christian growls. His good name may well be in tatters; he won't beg Jack Hyde for work again.

A detour by the tavern is written in the stars. It's early evening, still, and the chill is only now descending. He'll have to stir the fires twice before he beds down for the night, or else by morning the house will be as icy as a tomb. In the marketplace, the tradesmen are already packing their stalls, shutters latching tight against the chance of hale and trampled refuse squelching, soggy, underfoot. Christian has little coin: since Anastasia brought home a handful of eggs and a roll of cheese, he's been uneasy taking more than a silver with him when he leaves the house. It should be enough for a cup of ale.

"Come on up, sweet'art," croons a voice around the corner. "Don't be shy. Come have a look—finest silks from the Orient! Perfume and jewels—like that, do you?" There are few buyers left at this hour and fewer still likely to be tempted by brass necklaces and colorful ribbons. Most women have already returned to their homes, to ready supper for their husbands and sons. Most, but not all.

Christian stops short at the sight of Anastasia cautiously approaching the merchant's wares, a basket balanced upon her hip, the wind blowing her hair this way and that.

"Ain't you a beauty!" The merchant's fair head, Christian muses jealously, would look rather handsome mounted upon a spike on their doorstep. He wants to lunge forth and snatch Anastasia from the man's sights, to lay waste to all the worthless trinkets and baubles on display, and yet he stands still, feet rooted to the dirt as Anastasia points to this and that and the other ornament, her pale fingers caressing artfully woven threads. She takes a string of red glass beads when it is pressed upon her, gamely looping it around her neck. The cold wind shakes her braid enough for Christian to glimpse a toothy smile.

They've been married nearly twenty days and this is the first time he's seen her laugh outside the house, without Taylor to spin tales for her amusement. Her whole face lights up. She has not seen him yet, so she doesn't rush to conceal her joy; she doesn't hang her head or turn her back to him as though expecting a blow. Christian knows men will raise a hand to their wives for less, but though Ana denies him her body and her charms, he hasn't stooped so low. Not yet. Not for all the temptation of a lonely night when she is close enough to touch, to smell, when her breaths even out in sleep and he knows he could tug up her shift and avail himself of her body.

He hasn't. He regrets it now, watching her laugh at a stranger's flirtation. Does she not know this will encourage talk? Does she not care that it shames him?

"You're mighty quiet for a girl so pretty," the merchant says, leering. "Cat got your tongue, love?"

That's it. Christian has had enough of watching. Still hot under the collar from the humiliation of his exchange with Hyde, he makes to stride forward and beat that impudent foreigner until his knuckles bleed. Let them put him in irons for murder, he cares not.

Anastasia chuckles—he is near enough to hear it now—and shakes her head. One hand goes to her chin, sweeping outward. Christian sees only a fraction of her profile, but there's no call for the gesture. It's no profanity, she's too fine for that, nor is it a come hither like the wild gesticulations of tavern whores.

The merchant's blond brows creep higher onto his forehead. "Well, ain't that a pity... No need for thanks, you keep the chain, now. No, do," he insists, refusing to let Anastasia set it back down again. Their hands fold into an awkward tangle around the glass beads and Christian can sense his wife's distress. The urge to come to her aid rises in him at odds with freshly-awoken curiosity. He ducks behind a cart when Ana glances around, as though afraid of being seen on such familiar terms with a man who is not her husband.

"Me sister was born deaf," laments the tradesman. "Dead last winter... Don't know no one else who'd learn to sign-speak. Aye, take the necklace. It were my sister who made it."

But Anastasia will have none of it. She wrenches free, staggering back against her own force, and picks up her skirts with a shaking hand. She is quick on her feet for a girl raised in the lap of luxury. She doesn't pay any heed to the merchant's pleas: Christian knows she'll run all the way home and bolt the door behind her. He's beginning to see a pattern in the way his wife goes about her day. There is at least one instance of fear to twist her pretty face into something ugly and morose. If God's will won't send her hardship, she'll undertake to fashion it herself.

"That girl that was just here," Christian asks of the merchant, striding forth. "You had her say something... didn't you?"

Keen eyes peer at him over a sprawl of jade and amber, and other not-so-precious gems fashioned more or less craftily into jewelry. "What's it to you?"

"I'm her husband."

The tradesman snorts. "And I'm good Queen Kate herself!"

"She said something to you," Christian insists, ignoring the misdirection. He cares nothing for those who abuse Kate's name; she is well worth their scorn.

"Thought you was her husband, lad. Reckon her husband would know the girl don't speak..."

Their stilted conversations are proof enough of that and Christian has been patient with Ana's scribbling. He'll pardon her for giving him orders in writing only because it saves on ink to leave out the _please_ and _thank you_—though in all sincerity, he doubts she'd bother with sweet words even if they had the coin to spare. "I know she's mute," Christian sighs. "And yet you had her speak... just like your sister?" Christian has a sister of his own. He knows what it's like to see her wronged by jealous gods and feel powerless to help her. "Please," he begs. "I'll give you a pound for the necklace."

Once, he was a lord's son and wore doublets made of the finest brocade. He rode through towns like Lorcastle on well-fed horses and the small folk would bow their heads to him in respect for the ancient House of Grey. These days he suffers the scrutiny of a shrewd seller of rags and gems, all for the sake of a woman.

"This," the merchant says, mimicking Ana's gesture, "means thank you. They been teachin' it to the dumb and deaf up in Scotland. Your woman's of northern blood, is she?"

Christian shakes his head. He doesn't know, in all honesty, and Kate didn't care to tell him of his wife's family other than mention she had lost a father to the war of succession. And she only bothered to do as much to poison their nuptials.

"How do you say..." _Hello_? _I'm sorry_? Christian trails off, suddenly overwhelmed by the prospect that he could have an easy way to converse his wife, one that would not require the intermediary of a quill. "How do you say _I've bought you this gift _and... I, uh..."

"Spit it out, boy. No woman wants a tongue-tied lout for a husband."

No one likes an impudent peasant, either, but Christian isn't going around rebuffing those. "How do you say," he grits out, "_I'm sorry _in that bloody tongue of theirs?"

For coin, the merchant is willing to part with both necklace and the answer, though not before advising Christian on how to treat his wife. Everyone has an opinion on the matter, from his mother to his squire and the village smith. It's all useless advice: Anastasia doesn't want wooing, she wants to be free of him. He's sure she'd revel in his demise like her venomous friend in Stonemarsh. They're birds of a feather and they hate him for his father's sake. As Christian should hate his wife for hers.

Dead men make for heavy crosses.

He finds Ana in their bedchamber. She's tugging off her dress, the creamy slash of skin where her shift has ridden down her shoulder visible through a door that's been left just slightly ajar. The creak of footsteps alerts her to his presence. She starts badly, nearly tripping on the folds of stiff, muddy wool when their eyes meet. Her own are wide and wild as she falls to the bed with a thump. The sheer fabric of her shift hides little of the curve of pert breasts or the dark thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs. They've been married for weeks and Christian has yet to see her naked. Knowing the haven of her womanly heat once is not enough to shake his desire or slake his curiosity. Nor is it not enough to make her any less fearful.

Christian ventures into the room, something in his chest twisting badly to see Anastasia tremble at the mere sight of him. "Mother's still out?" He doesn't know why he asks; Lady Grey goes to see Mia at the priory every day now that they have enough coin to bribe the monks. It leaves the house empty and Ana alone to dread her husband's advances. (There haven't been many of those lately.) Her quivering chin could do no worse job of hiding how frightful she finds the prospect. "I—wait." Ana aborts a last ditch attempt to scrabble to the far corner of the bed, her shoulders hunching dejectedly as Christian fumbles with his tunic. "Here—"

The necklace is stark red, the glass beads clinking together as he dangles the string from one hand. "For you." He mimes the merchant's gesticulation as best he can, watching Ana's gaze dart from necklace to him and back. He must have the sign-speak wrong, though, because rather than take the trinket, Anastasia begins hoisting up her shift. "What are you doing?" The sharp query stops her short. "I bought you a gift," Christian contends, dumb and bewildered by the mournful expression in his wife's eyes. She should be grateful, not—not scared. Not tempted to flee from him.

All Christian ever did was rip her from everything she knew and brutalize her in his bed.

"Ana—"

She looks up. This might be the first time he's called her by her name in weeks of marriage. The merchant's gesture is Christian's only shield against the vicious onslaught of guilt: his palm, clutched tight to a fist around the glass beads, draws a slow circle over his heart. _I'm sorry_. "Do you understand?" Ana nods minutely. It's a relief. "Good. All right. Well. I'll... be downstairs." He leaves the necklace on the bed, a safe distance away from touching any part of his wife's body.

He cannot account for the rumbling in his belly: it is not hunger, or thirst, or want. It comes from seeing Anastasia as afraid from him as a doe from a hunter.

Before the thought can set down pestilential roots inside his skull, Christian is startled by the smack of a fist against the front door. "Grey! Open up, damn you!" For all the nights he's laid awake in bed contemplating vengeance and all the battles he's lost (and lost again, in dreams), he'll never mistake Ethan Ashlake's voice for another's. His first thought is for punishment; for the hunting he's done on castle land and the pleasure the Royal Bastard will take in putting him in the stocks. But a softer drawl follows, cajoling, "don't be so boorish, my love," and Christian doesn't know what to make of that.

Sweet, ardent love, perhaps, but that was years ago, in another life.

There is precious little Christian still holds to be certain; he might have made a mistake in thinking his enemies would grant him peace now that he's humiliated himself before their eyes, for here is the Queen's bastard brother standing outside his door, a dozen guards filling the courtyard while a woman stands beside him, leaning on his arm.

"Elena." Ice trickles into Christian's voice, guilt at once supplanted by the faithful stab of resentment. She is a vision in dark burgundy, her jeweled fingers gleaming as bright as her smile.

"Lady Lincoln," the Bastard corrects, red-faced and far less pleased with the familiar address. "You'll do well to remember that, Knight!"

_Oh, good_, Christian muses despairingly, _we're back to that_. There are malignant warts less bothersome than Ethan's dogged determination to behave like a baseborn scoundrel. All the titles and all the castles in the land can't disguise his vulgar conduct, blue blood be damned. "To what," Christian asks, "do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"I heard you were wed!" Elena says, wholehearted in her joy. "Is it true? I must meet her!"

To invite them in is to expose himself to their scorn. Christian balks. At least his mother isn't here to suffer the judgment of her former handmaid and a boy whose mother milked goats for her bread. He spares a thought for Ana, but it's not as though he can conceal her from the world forever.

Ethan revels in his discomfort: "Have you forgotten your manners, Knight?"

"I find they run away from me when I am given commands in my own home, but I beg you, don't let that detract from your purpose. You might have told Elena—forgive me, _Lady_ _Lincoln_ about Ana yourself. I do believe she and your sister grew up together..." He doesn't believe, he knows, but to bring it up is to remind Ethan that anything he says to mock Anastasia inevitably shames his own sister.

There's no comparable armor in which to wreathe his shabby home, or the chicks chirping blithely in their crate by the hearth. Ethan sniggers to hear their music.

"Oh, I know all about Anastasia Steele," Elena titters, "I've heard much and more of her charms. I must say you've made her a lovely home... and so like a farm!" The glint of her jewelry seems even brighter in the glow of the fire. Her very presence makes the room feel small and dusty, as though it is simply too humble to receive such a prosperous guest. Christian may strive to remind himself that he is a Lord's son, or that Elena once served at his mother's pleasure and crawled into his bed to seek _his_ favor: the tables have been turned and now _he_ is the pauper. _He_ is the one begging for work from men who despise him while Elena directs her feminine wiles to more deserving quarters. She has yet to release Ethan's arm, dangling from that stiff bicep as though from an anchor. "Well?" Her eyes crinkle with cruel interest. "Where are you hiding this northern beauty of yours? Ethan tells me she is—"

Anastasia chooses that moment to tread a little harder than necessary on the bottom stair. The wood creaks loudly, interruption enough to curtail Elena's diatribe. The contrast between the two women is glaring: Ana's hair flows unbound, a chestnut mane curling about the sleeves of a green dress that hasn't been laced near tightly enough to give her a fashionable waistline. She looks nothing like Elena, who is put-together and elegant down to the tips of her fingernails. Her rosy cheeks gleam pink in the firelight. She is visibly uneasy at the sight of company—and who can blame her? Ethan and Elena loom like the dragons of stories, their shadows stretching tall upon the floor.

"My lady of Lincoln," Christian hears himself say, "if you would permit me to introduce my wife, Anastasia of House Steele..." He doesn't realize he's coming to Ana's rescue until her small, cool fingers are clasped tightly around his. She stands beside him without flinching: wife and helpmate in trying times.

The glass necklace around her pale neck looks more and more like a string of rubies.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter six**

The curtsy is as close to perfect as she can muster when her heart is racing in her chest, just as fluid and graceful as the old matron taught her and Kate during their lessons. She cannot speak, but then that's never stopped anyone at Stonemarsh Castle from scrutinizing her shamelessly; Lady Elena and her vast array of rings and pearls are no exception.

"She is taller than I expected," is her first pronouncement. "And so dark! Are we sure she has no gypsy blood? Or—Heaven protect us—some Moorish ancestry?" She laughs and the men obligingly laugh with her. Ana can only offer a small, timid smile. "How do you do, my dear? I'm Lady Lincoln, a friend of your husband's and soon to be wed to his liege lord." A venomous smile stretches her thin lips as she tilts ever so slightly towards Ethan. It is strange to see him festooned in a lord's garb when it wasn't so long ago he was the horse upon which Ana and Kate careered around in the gardens. Their tutors tried in vain to school them into more ladylike conduct, but such efforts were altogether hopeless when Ethan was only too happy to oblige their games.

He would have done anything Kate asked—climbed the tallest tree, scaled the face of a mountain. He even fought a war in her name and damn near killed every last man standing in their way. Loyalty like that is stronger than any title or tithe; it is blood. Ana has only ever played its witness, but she's had years to observe the Kavanagh clan. She might even have fancied herself part of their family for a while in her youth.

An illusion, she now knows.

There are other memories where those come from: of making daisy chain necklaces and flinching to feel the embrace of steel arms around her waist, of the dogwood stirring when Kate insisted they should go skinny dipping in the lake, just the two of them and the round moon glinting off the water. Of feeling selfishly glad when Ethan received his title at last, for it meant he would be far beyond her reach. As she is now wed and he is brother to the Queen, Ana knows it's foolish to think it should ever have mattered. No doubt Ethan will make a better match with Lady Elena and forget all about the poor voiceless girl who kept Kate company in her youth.

"So very quiet," remarks her visitor. "Are we shy, little bird?"

"Mute," Christian says, at Ana's shoulder. She ducks her head at the vile word as though it is a barked command, out of habit, though this time there doesn't seem to be the same amount of vitriol in Christian's voice. He might be getting used to the idea or it might simply be distraction. And yet it almost feels as though Christian's fingers give hers a little press before withdrawing. "Do sit down," he invites, taking on the role of host in Ana's stead.

Ethan looks about to protest, but Lady Elena is already obliging. "Oh, how terrible for you," she laments, "and your poor mother—pray, what does she make of this unfortunate development?" There can be no mistaking the gleeful edge that slithers, reptilian and cool, under the query. This is exciting gossip: here is the former Lord Christian, brought so low that the Queen herself bid him take a dumb wife.

"My mother is well pleased of her," Anastasia hears her husband answer offhandedly, "as am I." She cannot see his face for he is pulling back her chair at the wide mahogany table and she must sit or expose him to ridicule before his guests. There is no telling if he speaks in irony.

It's an answer surprising to more than Anastasia. Elena Lincoln is put off her stride. "But..." She seems taken aback. "How do you converse?"

"She knows sign-speak," Christian says, the words rolling off his tongue. "And she writes exceptionally well. Will you take some wine?"

"No," Ethan answers crisply all but at the same time as Elena says "yes, gladly." The look they exchange is tinged with very little mirth and even less fondness. All is not well in Castle Grey.

Christian pours the wine without asking again.

"Sign-speak, how extraordinary... Does that mean she can mime?" Elena recovers quickly, chuckling soft: "May we have a demonstration?"

"I'd rather hear about your nuptials," Christian counters. "Has a date been decided yet?" He is cool but polite and for the first time since becoming his wife, Ana feels she can imagine what he might have been like as a young lord. His hands can't always have been so rough and callused, for one thing, and his words weren't always barked orders and cruel japes. Once upon a time, he must have had a court where laughter bloomed and music lilted into the small hours. And though he may be brought low before his enemies, he is still Lord enough to treat his guests with esteem and discretion.

Ana only diverts her gaze away from him when she feels another watching her speculatively. Ethan of Ashlake smiles a little when their eyes meet, but he is frosty in all else: perhaps he does not wish to be reminded that he once showed her favor. Purging a past that leaves to be desired is a luxury a man in his position may enjoy, but Ana is alone here and she hasn't had news from Stonemarsh since she left court. Homesickness makes her more bold than wise, if only for a moment: her left hand slips from the glass to form a series of quick signs: _How is Kate?_ The Queen's name is a special mark, devised between the two of them when they still played with dolls. Only Ethan can recognize it outside of that early, restricted complicity.

His expression shutters.

_She is well_. It's a curt answer from a man who was never short with his words or shy in his affections, but Ethan looks away deliberately before Anastasia can risk asking for more information than three measly words. Perhaps he is offended by her presumption—or worse, what if he has instructions from Kate not to tell Ana of what is happening at court? The sudden chill between them seems unwarranted; she has done nothing wrong. Or if she has, won't someone tell her how to make amends?

Elena's sharp laughter forces her from the cloud of misery that threatens to engulf her. "Oh, we must be off. My dear lord is very particular about keeping his guests waiting... Bishop Flynn himself is arriving tonight. Have I not said? He is to officiate our union—and what a marvelous thing!" Christian owns to hearing the news for the first time from her lips, which seems to please Lady Lincoln.

"You're very fortunate, my dear," the older woman tells Ana in ersatz confidence as she is walked to the door. "You have made a far better match than you can imagine. I should know," she adds, lowering her voice, " in his youth, Christian and I were very _close_ _friends_ indeed."

It's like the stab of an embroidery needle: cunning, oblique and excruciatingly painful. Ana stands beside her husband to see off their impromptu guests with knees increasingly weakened. It takes her a moment to notice the brush of Christian's fingers against the small of her back. She doesn't dare acknowledge it until the horses have trooped off with a great racket, their hooves pounding the dirt as they gallop away through narrow streets; and even then, over the descending hush and the swing of the front door creaking shut, she keeps very still under her husband's proprietary hold.

"Some coincidence, don't you think?" he asks softly, "The same evening my mother is away, our liege lord comes pay us a visit unannounced? Had I luck like that always, I would play the card tables more." His chuckle gusts against Anastasia's temple, strangely mirthless. She doesn't look up, choosing to examine the muddied hem of her dress than face what could well be disproof and anger. She doesn't think she could face that again tonight; her heart will give out. Christian takes no notice of this, turning to face her: "What was it you two were—"

"Oh, thank the Heavens you're all right!" Lady Grey appears in the kitchen door, still dressed in her travelling cloak, the apples of her cheeks stained pink with effort. "Did I imagine it," she asks, "or was that the Duke of Ashlake I saw riding out of town?" Her breaths are harried, as though she ran the last yards home on her way back from the priory.

Ana damn near crumbles to her knees in gratitude for the interruption. (Only a small part of her hangs stubbornly to regret.)

"It was," answers Christian, feigning obliviousness. "And you'll never guess who came with him."

Lady Grey tries her luck all the same: "The Queen? I saw a great deal of gemstones around a woman's neck, though why the Queen herself should come to Lorcastle is beyond me..."

"Not the Queen," Christian counters with a headshake, "but your former lady-in-waiting, Mother, now soon to be Duchess of Ashlake." There is something mocking in his tone when he speaks the name; after hearing the abuse he has in store for Kate's brother, Ana is no longer shocked at such gratuitous derision. Her silence is a blessing in disguise, for no one expects her to partake.

A shallow, shell-shocked burst of laughter dies in Lady Grey's throat as she makes her way to a chair by the fireside. "Not Elena, surely!" Her skirts trail across the carpet, tracking muddy tendrils.

Christian offers a low, lukewarm nod. "In the flesh. And looking rather more ornate than we'd last seen her. She was hanging off Ethan like a monkey from a tree branch. I thought she'd rip his arm sooner than let go."

Mother and son seem to have forgotten Anastasia, sharing in some private joke far beyond her understanding. Lady Elena was beautiful, there's no doubt about it, though her hair was already shot with silver and Ana struggles to imagine her as the mistress of a young knight. To think of her the handmaid of the former Lady of Grey doesn't stretch the mind nearly as much. It is a role that would have been once coveted by many a woman of middling parentage and few prospects, including Anastasia. More importantly, it transforms Lady Elena from a wealthy ideal into Ana's equal as far as birthright and expectations: the swell of panic burning in her throat at the thought of that woman with her husband is therefore more easily mitigated.

She is surely not the only woman Christian has ever known and she will not be Ethan's first mistress, either, so why should it bother Ana which other beds she has visited? A woman's honor is her province. Let God be Lady Elena's judge.

Lady Grey invites son and daughter-in-law to sit by her, too weary to keep peering up at them. She does look very tired, though her eyes are kind as Anastasia kneels on the soft carpet, fire licking warmly at her face. "That," Lady Grey notes, "is a very handsome necklace you're wearing, Anastasia. Did the Duke bring it, perhaps?" Her expression is too guileless for a jape.

Ana shakes her head. Her finger points to Christian, though it's impolite to gesticulate so and for once he seems to be looking her way like she's more than a cumbersome piece of furniture. (That's a frightening thought in and of itself, never mind what it might imply.)

"Indeed?" Lady Grey seems surprised. "Well... If I'd known my son had such an eye for value, I would have let him loose in the marketplace sooner."

Christian's answer is an abrupt, sniggering laugh. "And have me hold the family purse strings? You'd sooner chew sand." He is unceremonious and informal with his mother, his eyes gentled by her easy ribbing. Why can't he be like that with Ana? If only he had behaved kindly on the occasion of their wedding, she's sure she would've found ways to please him. Kate used to say that a woman's greatest talent is in learning how to earn her husband's favor: achieve that and she would be queen of her household. With time, Ana knows she could do this somehow. Christian is but a man.

And yet – her sudden desperation shames her deeply. Surely there is something amiss if a mere string of glass beads is enough to topple the walls painstakingly erected around her heart.

"How did you find my sister?" Christian asks, drawing back a chair to sit at his mother's right. "Is she well?"

So ends the brief flicker of good humor that warmed their shabby home. The shuffling of miniature claws in the box of straw and grass ensconced by the hearth plays counterpoint to the silence as Lady Grey struggles to paint a brave face onto her daughter's predicament. "I fear she was in low spirits today. There has been a letter from Stonemarsh since I saw her last—it was penned by royal command, with the Queen's seal."

_How odd_, Ana muses. _What could Kate want with Christian's sister?_

The thought has barely taken seed in her mind when she sees Christian's face fall. "No..."

"I fear," his mother sighs with a weary, sideways nod, "that our good fortune has finally run its course. The Prior had no choice but to set a date for the trial. We will be allowed to attend, of course, if we wish... Half the town will be there, so I don't see why we shouldn't brave the rotten eggs and the abuse they will heap upon us. I expect our liege lord will also be present as your sister's chief accuser—doubtlessly with his new blushing bride in tow." Her heavy headshake mirrors Christian's despondency. "I prayed with Mia for hours today, but there's no comfort in God's mercy if he takes my child from me. She has done nothing wrong and yet she is to be—" Lady Grey cuts herself off, a hand smothering whatever words she's too uneasy to speak. "She will be tried two days hence. We may hope for a miracle, but..."

"What of breaking her out?" Christian suggests fervently, his eyes wide and liquid in the firelight. "Of bribing the Prior to leave the gate open—"

Lady Grey is already shaking her head at the mere notion. "And have us hunted like dogs for thwarting God's will? For fleeing the Queen's justice? Your sister would find no shelter, no help from anyone. She would be a fugitive for the rest of her days. I already have a child in exile. I do not wish for another."

"Mother, they will burn her for a witch!"

"Do you think I don't know that?" Lady Grey shouts, matching her son with equal parts grief and outrage. "What am I to do, Christian? Tell me, my son, and I won't quibble for details. How am I to save my daughter without condemning my son _or_ his wife?" The clutch of her gnarled, wrinkled hand points to Anastasia, though Ana has said nothing and doesn't mean to be party to this quarrel.

The law is clear on the punishment of witches, but she's no longer the naïve little girl who believed justice to be clear and simple—or Queens to be impartial. To hear Lady Grey speak of her daughter, it seems there is no proof, no truth to these allegations beyond Ethan's wounded ego and the weight of his word. Calumny, not congress with the Devil, is why Mia Grey will go to her death.

"I don't know!" Christian pushes violently to his feet. "I don't know what to do..."

His shoulders sag, powerlessness writ in every twitch of breath. It's this man—angry and violent—that Ana most fears. Yet his violence isn't let loose and hasn't been in weeks of marriage. His anger, justified though it may be, doesn't seek to scold her for any mistakes. She is a bystander like Lady Grey, only she's never had the courage to stand up and be angry with him in turn.

It's not tonight that she'll change. Christian does not need another hand to strike him down; the Fates have been plenty quarrelsome of late.

"Too much wine," Christian's mother laments bleakly. "We've had too much wine to drink and eaten nothing... I will—see to supper. Anastasia?"

She nods. By now helping with the household chores is rote. Ana knows her place in the kitchen and the stirring and mixing of ingredients helps take her mind off the wants she cannot satisfy—the husband she cannot please despite her best efforts. Usually the hours spent in the kitchen with Lady Grey are a source of comfort. Tonight, though, Ana doesn't hurry her feet. She lingers even after Lady Grey has shuffled down the hall, out of sight and earshot.

There is so much grief in this family. At first Ana mistook it for wounded pride, but though that's an undeniable reality, it isn't by far the source of the fire that blazes so fiercely in her husband's veins. She watches him grip the stone hearth with both fists as if to tear it apart brick by brick, his bronze head bowed between his shoulders. Anastasia should know better by now—to caress the flames is to get her fingers burned—but she cannot help herself. She is needed.

Her hand cards gently over Christian's nape, a light caress she dimly remembers from her infancy. It made her feel safe, once. It made her feel loved.

It's Christian's turn to keep as still as a doe in the hunter's sights, his breaths suddenly short and syncopated. "You should," he says, slowly, "—you should help my mother. With supper."

Ana's hand dips to his shoulder with a placid clasp. The dismissal would sting like an iron stoker plucked fresh from the fire if only she didn't think it meant for her husband's sake rather than her own. No man wants to weep before his wife, never mind one as proud and aggrieved as Christian Grey.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **Apologies for the delay on this chapter. I got it about halfway done before the holidays hit and then _those_ ended and real life and real book writin' got in the way. I think the two-chapter a week model I had going for a while might be a little ambitious to sustain, so I'm going to switch to only one installment each week (likely to be posted during the weekends). Rest assured, I'm not giving up on this story and I have a few twists and turns planned for our not-so-merry lovers. Hopefully you'll find this chapter was worth the wait! Onwards...**  
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**Chapter seven**

"No one would think the less of you for changing your mind," Christian insists, though they are already inside the priory grounds and the road home is muddy and meandering and she would be no safer attempting it on her own than visiting a prison cell. "You can wait outside," he says, trying again. No use in pressing the point: his wife is as stubborn as a mule and she clutches her basket as though it is a shield on the field of battle. Mother might have joined them, or Taylor, but both had work to do: supper will not cook itself and Taylor has just barely managed to enter into Jack Hyde's employ. Even if he keeps all the wages he earns at the smithy, which he won't because duty is a stubborn beast, that still means one less mouth to feed. This is all to the good.

Christian's pride will mend; he has no skill with the forge and hammer, so getting passed up for his squire is no grave shock. His talents lie elsewhere: in genuflection, for example, before a Prior five years his junior.

"We don't normally allow prisoners so much contact with the world," he tells them, his accent thick. "It is so cruel to remind them of what they have lost. Nor is it fruitful in this time of reflection and repentance, to be interrupted by—"

"Prior José," Christian interrupts, "have you met my wife, Lady Anastasia?" A flash of guilt is easily subsumed; better to put Ana between himself and the Spaniard before he does something truly thoughtless—like raise a fist to this well-meaning man of God. Lady Grey seems to like him well enough and he has been kind enough to bend the rules so that Mia would not be alone these many weeks, but he is still a superstitious fool at the mercy of the Queen's follies. He'll have burned her come the morrow, kind as he is.

Anastasia offers the Prior a shallow nod, her gaze darting to Christian's as though to seek his approval. She need not: there are precious few ladies he has met who behave with her decorum. Silence might play to her favor, but she's undeniably charming in her propriety. She always—or at least, _often_—does as she is told. She never treats his mother with anything less than heartfelt respect. Everyone in Lorcastle seems to like her—some men a little too much by Christian's marking. If she remains willful about the affairs between husband and wife, then she is not blame..

"Lady Grey has spoken to me of her," the Prior says, taking Ana's smaller hand between his palms. "Very pleased to make your acquaintance. I know a little of the sign-speak you must have learned in the North—I would be so grateful to learn more. You understand, this could be a true godsend—to be able to spread God's Word to those who cannot otherwise hear us..."

Lady Grey seems to have done more than _mentioned_ Anastasia. Christian tries not to let the Prior's presumption get to him. "If time permits," he temporizes, settling a hand at Ana's back. "May I see my sister?" The Prior cannot refuse to oblige them if he aspires to free tutelage from Christian's wife. Such thoughts are mercenary and base, but a man in Christian's position has only a limited arsenal. He must use every arrow in his quiver.

The Prior's lips thin into a show of understanding. "Certainly... I'm sure she will be pleased of your visit."

Lorcastle Priory is the domain of monks garbed in the black of José's robes. They do not look at Christian or Ana as they pass: what should it matter that they are being led to the dungeon cells beneath the abbey? Cold stone confines them on every side, the path lit with crackling torchlight. A faint odor of excrement and stale sweat fills the air. Christian tries not to wonder how many men and women have died in this horrible place, this hell on earth; it's doing nothing to ease his grip on his wife's hand, though for what it's worth she hasn't shown discomfort or sought to shake him off yet.

A row of steel bars announces the prison. Every cell to either side is empty, save for the last. It has a narrow window at the very top and thin blades of sunlight filter through the slats between steel bars. This is luxury and it was a costly buy, possible only thanks to Anastasia's clever bartering in the marketplace.

At first, the cell looks to be as empty and strewn with straw and dirt as all the others.

"Mia?" Prior José speaks the prisoner's name softly, as if afraid of interrupting her solace. "You have visitors—"

Laughter barks from within the cell. "My brother," says a voice, "and his poor, young filly." The shadows stir: Mia, rising slowly to her feet. "The _wrong_ brother, mind," she corrects, stepping into the dim glow of torchlight. "—and the _wrong_ bride... though she is a pretty one. You're excused, Prior."

"My lady—"

"Leave us!" Mia's voice echoes around the stone walls like the clash of swords. Christian feels Anastasia recoil and has to stop himself from doing the same. The Prior, he notices, is red-faced and wide-eyed, as though he can't fathom being so treated by a woman. He must have forgotten that Christian's sister was raised to hold herself above the rabble. She certainly doesn't look the part of an only daughter born to wealth and privilege; her silks and thick wools have been replaced by a long cotton shift, the ends of which pool around Mia's feet on the floor. The fabric may once have been white, but time and use has turned the material to a suspicious yellow-beige. Darker patches mar the cloth here and there, but Christian is too much his mother's son to look.

He clears his throat. "Prior, I'm sure you have more important duties to attend to. We won't be long and—thank you again." Ana mimics his gratitude with the same sign-speak gesture she showed Christian the other day.

José lets himself be persuaded; the air is fetid, the light ripe with despair, and the company, if Mia's opening volley is any indication, about to be rather difficult. "I will instruct one of the brothers to come fetch you within the hour," he says and stalks off, footsteps receding.

"That wasn't very mannerly," Christian observes, chiding his sister as he might have done when they were children. He can't look at her as she hooks her elbows through the gaps in the bars, hair sheared around her once-lovely face and nails blackened with dirt, and see her as less than the apple of their father's eye. She will always be Elliot's favorite and Christian's only playmate.

Mia rolls her shoulders into a shrug. "I shall make amends on my way to the kiln. He's a Prior, dear brother, he'll have no choice but to forgive me. Oh, never mind that. It's about time you introduced me to your wife... Hello, there. My name is Mia. I'm not normally entombed in such lavish accommodation, but I thought to see how the world looks from so far down... What do you think? Is it not like being in a troll's cave?"

To Christian's surprise, this startles a laugh out of Ana. He's even more impressed to see her nod.

"I see a basket," Mia presses, gesturing to Anastasia's bounty. "Is that for me? I'd invite you inside, but I'm afraid they're quite strict about who they'll allow on this side of the trellis. Well, don't just stand there, brother! Your lady wife should sit upon your cloak. I'm sure I've seen rats scuttling about where you stand. They make for warm companions, did you know?"

Pure horror washes across his face. "You're joking." This can't be the life they have condemned her to, not when she of their entire clan has done nothing to merit such treatment.

Mia shrugs and sits heavily upon the stone floor. No cloak for her. Her features have sharpened since she's been taken; the circles under her eyes are darker. Her collarbones are visible beneath the loose collar of her shift. Whatever kindness Prior José has permitted, it has done little to keep her in good health. She is wasting away in this hellhole. (_Not for long_, whispers his merciless conscience. _Come tomorrow, she will be free_.)

"I'm still afraid of rats," his sister admits fretfully. "And you are still so easy to trip up. Oh, are those mince pies? How lovely they smell—" Fingers as thin as bird claws reach through the bars for the cloth-wrapped bundle Ana prepared in the early hours. "—and how lovely they taste," Mia adds, speaking with her mouth full. "Brother, you must treat this one kindly or I shall haunt your dreams and steal all your suppers." Another bite and the torchlight catches on her chapped lips: the Prior swore she would not be tortured when they took her away, but what does he call keeping Mia on too little drinking water and not enough food?

A sob catches in Christian's throat, the sound of it echoing guiltily in the dungeon.

"What's this?" quips Mia. "Has someone died?"

"_Don't_. How can you make light of your predicament?" Christian takes a shuddering breath. "Forgive me, sister. I should have—I would break down this door if I only had some way to take you to safety..."

"And damn our mother?" Mia's brow arches. "You've never been the most forward-thinking in our family... Better than Elliot, to be sure, but where he's all merry swashbuckling, you withdraw and bemoan your misfortune. Admit that we have lost and live your life, brother. See what a beautiful wife you've gotten yourself. She doesn't speak, but you'll have to learn to listen all the same. She doesn't have a father to swat your knuckles when you behave poorly, so you shall be forced to learn fairness."

Christian shakes his head, overcome by the ease with which Mia has qualified her fate. "You still scold..."

"You need scolding—and Ana here is too gentle to tell you when you've lost your marbles, isn't she?" The smile shared by sister and wife is full of female all-knowing intuition. It should unsettle Christian to discover them in such effortless complicity, but there's no time to be jealous. Every minute spent with Mia is one less minute in the hourglass of her life. Come noon tomorrow, she will be trotted out like a lamb to the slaughter, abused with foul words and foul fruit—and then purged of the so-called demons that inhabit her body. "Come," Mia entreats, "tell me of your wedding. I understand you went to Stonemarsh to beg for my release... Now that's a word I never thought I'd say when speaking of your deeds, brother. Were there no tourneys in town? No joust you could have attended? Even Hercules' travails might have suited—"

"Has Mother not told you once already?" Christian asks in an effort to still her swift tongue. She may think this is a lark, but poor Ana has bowed her head; perhaps in hiding, perhaps the thought of their nuptials is as bleak in her memory as it is in Christian's.

Mia takes no notice of this: "Of course she has, but I want to hear it from your mouth. Give me all the details and hold nothing back. I hear Queen Kate had our good Prior Flynn perform the ceremony?"

She did indeed, though Flynn is bishop now. Christian tells her the story as though it happened to someone else and he is merely recounting the events of that unfortunate occasion. It's a tale of dashed hopes and regrets made worse by loutish behavior—mostly his—to say nothing of cruelty. He keeps details of the wedding night and all the nights since to himself; Ana knows. Her private business need not become a matter for light gossip, even if it is only shared with family. Speaking of Ana's exploits in the marketplace is a little easier. Mia seems to find the arithmetic just as interesting at the outcome.

"But how did you know to sell the catch in part rather than whole? I'm sure it wouldn't have crossed my brother's mind..."

Ana's hands reach into the basket for scroll and inkpot. This is still a necessary intermediary, for Christian has barely mastered the basics of her sign-speak language and he often forgets he is to mime his speech so as to learn the gestures that must be performed. Ana is a good teacher: she is patient and never becomes cross when he makes a mistake. If she finds his slowness infuriating, then she is kind enough not to show it.

_Kate and I would go to the market when we were growing up,_ she writes. _Her father would give her three coins and I only the one, to thank me for accompanying his daughter. I learned quickly the value of a silver and the ways of commerce. Kate liked her ribbons and jewels. I wanted some of my own, so I worked to that end._

Wealth wasn't given to Ana; she acquired it using nothing but her clever mind and the forces of trade.

"And did you get ribbons and jewels?" Mia asks, delighted.

Ana shakes her head no: _I bought sewing shears and a box in which to keep Kate's earrings. The silver was not mine to spend._

Prior José comes to retrieve them long before Christian is ready to leave. "Another minute," he begs, but it's no use. Evening prayer is to begin shortly and the Prior cannot spare any monks to see them out. Christian does not wish to spend the night in the dungeon, does he? "I'll be there tomorrow," Christian tells his sister. "I swear it. Look for me in the crowd."

"I shall," Mia assures him. "And you for me... though I shall have the better seat!"

The priory gates close behind them with a heavy, hollow sound and it's all Christian can do not to drop to his knees in the muck and cry like an infant. "She was holding back her tears, did you see?" Ana is standing by him: a little further way, where it's safe, but close enough, as though it hasn't yet crossed her mind to leave him with his misery. A small, vicious part of Christian almost wishes she would. Let her take her soft smiles and gentle eyes and cease tormenting him. Let her go back to Kate, her bosom friend and sworn companion. "They're going to kill my sister," he hear himself say instead, throat drawing tight around a sob.

Ana's hand finds his wrist. Her fingers are very cold and very frail. She doesn't eat enough; she should take better care of herself—Christian is clearly not in measure to do it for her. The proof of it is in the way he doesn't even try to shake her hold. A better man would play at courage and flaunt the Queen's law. He'd sweep in, rescue Mia with no thought for his own safety or the future of his family, and try his luck elsewhere, like the much-maligned heroes of ancient tales. King Arthur and his men would never have stood for such injustice. (He forgets that Arthur was betrayed in the end.)

"What am I to do?" Mother asked the same thing. When faced with such a bleak reality, what can anyone do to save Mia from her fate?

His wife's shoulders hitch up into a shrug. It means _I do not know_. It means _come _and _let me put your cares to bed_.

This is one night on which he cannot oblige her. "I'll sit by the fire a while," Christian says when they make it home. The hearth is almost cold, logs burnt down to ashes, so he stirs it again and again, adding dried leaves to make the flames blaze hotter and the light glow gold and amber around the small room. At some point, he hears Taylor's footsteps drag across the floorboards as his squire comes to join him. They do not speak. The fire is loud enough for two men.

Lady Grey descends in her night clothes and a thick wool blanket, silent and still.

Anastasia is last to join them, but she does, kneeling on the carpets by the fire to run her fingers over the sunny plumage of the freshly-hatched chicks. They peck at and scuttle from the brush of her fingertips at first, but fright is a matter of habit and eventually they learn to submit to her caresses. Christian catches himself thinking that pain is learned in much the same way: once there are enough welts and the skin is grown thick, the whip becomes welcome. The heart cannot live in a permanent state of panic. It either gives out or it gives in.

"The sun is coming up," Taylor says, his voice rough from lack of use. And he's right: a thin light is rising in the east, casting long shadows upon the floor. A whole night has been wasted.

"Aye... let us make ready." Christian holds out his hand to help Anastasia to her feet. She takes it. Bowls are quickly filled with well water to rinse their bodies and pat down the dark circles under their eyes. There's little enough purpose in it, but Christian doesn't protest the fastidiousness of such ablutions. A man must dress well for wedding or baptism—or funeral. That tradition is all they have left.

A crowd is already gathered in the priory grounds when at last the Greys make their way through. Christian recognizes Jack Hyde and few of the tavern wenches, all of them eager for the spectacle that is a witch's trial. The monks have been busy since he was last here; between evening prayer and the come of dawn, their efforts have erected a thin pyre with room for kindling to be added should the flames sputter and die. Beside him, Lady Grey holds herself very stiff and formal. Loss is nothing new to her: she has buried a husband.

"Perhaps you shouldn't stand so close," Christian suggests. "The blaze will be—"

His mother shakes her head, tight-lipped. "I'm perfectly well."

"Ana?" Why he still tries to steer the women in his life, Christian cannot say. Wife and mother are both wearing their best, their hair done up in thick coils pinned back over the shoulders. One cannot look at them and claim to see weakness of spirit. They are not the brittle sex.

Nor does his sister satisfy the criteria. Her hair may be sheared to the ears' like a boy's, and her dress may be a dirty linen shift, but she holds her head high when they drag her out at lance point. A loud cackle rises from the gathered onlookers, crisp, vicious tongues twisted by rancor. Fruit made soft with rot is thrown at Mia, but with the monks on either side to drag her forth, the projectiles mostly miss their target. Prior José rises to the platform by the pyre, extending his hands to placate the mob. "Good people of Lorcastle—we are here not to judge or castigate, but to bear witness to God's holy punishment." He has to shout himself hoarse to be heard, for the crowd won't easily give way to a priest when it's worked itself into such frenzy. "God," the Prior insists, "_God_ who in His law denounces witchcraft and Devil worshippers—like this woman here." He signals forth and monks tug Mia to the pyre, to be presented for a culprit. "This conjurer who ensnared so many of your sons and polluted Lorcastle with presence, this—"

"Have you proof?" Silence has never been Christian's friend. He can't help shout the question and repeat it when the men and women around him stop speaking to listen. Someone's hand reaches for his and Christian can't say if it's his mother's grasp or Ana's; he avoids it either way. "Where is the proof that this woman, my _sister_, is as you say—a witch?"

Mia's eyes find his, but she wears their mother's composure. She won't give satisfaction to this flock of thoughtless, blood-thirsty sheep.

"She has been found guilty," Prior José recalls. He seems taken aback. This could well be his first witch burning; it's nothing Christian cares to forgive him for when it's Mia tied to the stake.

"By whom? By God?"

"By—" The Prior looks away. "By the Queen's justice and her trusted advisors. We have testimony." The loud rumblings of the crowd have become a thin murmur: the crier brought out the townspeople for entertainment, not lengthy proceedings.

"Light her up!" shouts a voice.

"Kill the witch!"

Christian knows he shouldn't—perhaps it's madness that has him forsake the promises made to those he loves—but he can't stand idly by while Mia is left to pay for crimes she never committed. He climbs the dais. "My sister is innocent! She's just a girl—still a child! She was ever courteous to you in the fields and market; she's never hurt any of you, nor spoken out of turn to her elders. How can you condemn her for refusing a man ten years her senior? She was a Lord's daughter and he—"

"Is a Lord's son!" crows another voice, this one familiar and smooth like butter. Lady Elena still clutches her groom's arm. "You have no right to deny another man his bounty, Sir knight. Envy is a sin!"

"His bounty? No," Christian answers, "but his word? When he was making overtures to my sister not three nights before he called her a witch?" His finger points to Ethan of Ashlake, lest anyone here present should be in doubt as to the identity of Mia's accuser. "He has maligned my sister for refusing him; he has no proof!"

Prior José intercedes: "Is that—is that the case, my Lord Ashlake?"

The hush around the priory grounds is deafening. Ethan, Duke of Ashlake glares up at Christian with foxlike eyes, lips thin and crisply slanted as he smiles. "As sure as _my_ sister is Queen of England, so do I know that you and all your family are traitors—and that Mia of House Grey is a harlot and a witch."

No stone throw could be more effective. The mob takes up the sentence with glee, for a Duke's word must be the truth, their hollers drowning out both Christian's attempts to pacify and the Prior's plea for decorum. There is none to be had, only bloodthirsty hounds keen to see the Lord's will be done. "Do it now," hisses one of the monks, "before they rise against us and murder us all!"

"No!" Christian is still within earshot, but too far to intercede. He lunges blindly for the pyre, trying to climb upon it, only the mob has neared the platform and they catch him by the ankles. A flurry of movement and he finds himself face down in the muck, soles stamping so close he's sure they'll soon crush his skull.

No such luck. Hands grasp him by the arms, grip tight and strong—Taylor's hands. "Alright, m'lord?"

Far from it. Fire catches at the logs and branches heaped beneath the pyre. He wasn't wrong about the blaze: it scorches the very air from his lungs as it catches fire. The mob recoils when the kindling ignites, some joining their hands in prayer while others still spit upon the ground in final condemnation. Christian catches sight of his mother and of Ana, sees them hold each other in the face of cruelty. He can only follow their eyes to Mia.

Tears are leaking down his sister's cheeks, the first and only fissure in her composure.

"Sister—" Christian chokes out. Water trickles onto his cheeks and he lifts up a sleeve to brush it away only—there's too much of it, a ceaseless deluge. Christian's cheeks are well and truly damp, but not with tears. He glances up. Not tears, no: _rain_. Sheets of it, with more and more pouring down by the instant; a leaden sheet has roofed the town of Lorcastle, with thick, silvery clouds illuminated by an abrupt clap of thunder. Another follows just as a humbling slash of lightning all but spears the heavens.

On her guttered pyre, Mia laughs sharp and sudden. Her bonds break loose.

"Is this God's will, Prior? Is this His doing?" Arms open wide as though to embrace the storm. "You know nothing of justice or God or goodness! I curse you," Mia bellows, blade suddenly in hand—is it the same dagger that severed the ropes tying her to the pyre? Christian cannot say. He can barely see her as the crowd disperses in fear. "You, Ethan, so-called Duke of Ashlake and you, Elena Lincoln—seamstress and lady-in-waiting to the rightful lady of Castle Grey—may your union be barren and your bed cold. May you rue the day you turned your back on my brothers! Think on your sins, people of Lorcastle." Her knife cuts deep enough into her arm for a trickle of crimson blood to stain the scaffolding. "A day of reckoning is coming—a day for vengeance and justice! A day for the dead to rise and reclaim what is theirs."

Lightning crowns her, washing away the dirt and hunger, the long days spent in a place with little light. Mia is herself once more, but in Christian's eyes, she is also—more. "Think on your sins," she warns and her voice is thunder itself.

The Duke of Ashlake seems to have lost his own voice, but luckily his bride-to-be suffers no similar affliction: "Seize her!" she shouts, red-faced, but it's already too late. The tide swell of feeling has already turned; villagers are fleeing the scene, trampling each other and the monks, and the guardsmen descended from Castle Grey alike. Christian himself finds it impossible to advance. Taylor is behind him, strong and surly in a fight, but even he is not impervious to the force of a mob. The madness sweeps them up—and Ana, too. Christian sees her ruby necklace before he sees her face, but it's enough to get him running sideways through the frantic flock rather than against the stream.

"Anastasia! _Anastasia_, wife—it's me." Her hands try at first to wrench free of him, but she relents when Christian's voice registers. Wide eyes dart to the pyre. She needs no voice to speak Mia's name.

Christian follows her gaze: the scaffolding and stake are empty and rain-soaked, his sister's blood washing away in the downpour. Of Mia, there is no sign.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter eight**

The bedroom is the only place Ana can escape to that hasn't been invaded by the Duke's guards, but then Elena Lincoln claims to take ill and her groom-to-be refuses to spare the men to see her back to the castle, so Anastasia is forced to give up her only hideout to her husband's once-mistress. She has no choice but to join the gathering downstairs, her skin crawling with the thought of Medusa rolling around in Christian's bed. Below, tempers are flaring hot enough for a distraction:

"You may seek to pretend, but I know you had something to do with your sister's escape. Do not take me for a fool!" Ethan is adamant and Christian keeps scowling at the hearth as if the flickers and flames of the fire hold any answers. Only Lady Grey seems to be relieved. Her fingers work a string of rosary beads with the patience of a nun. She had been dreading today's execution more than anyone here and yet her child lives. Even if a manhunt is going on to return her to the stake, Mia has escaped. If she's very, very fortunate, she will outfox her pursuers and leave the country by the first boat to the Low Countries. She will be safe there.

Ana drops to a chair beside her mother-in-law. _I'm happy for you_, she scribbles onto a page, and quickly daubs the ink to smudge it before any of the Duke's entourage may see her treasonous words. Lady Grey does and smiles privately, which is enough for Ana. It's not so easy to offer support to her husband. He's been caught between shock and disquiet ever since they left the priory, and the Duke's presence has done nothing to help.

"Damn you, Grey!" Ethan says, slamming his open palm against the table. "This is God's law you are thwarting, you and your miserable—"

"It's Kate's law," Christian drawls. "And you know I had nothing to do with putting out those flames. _That_ was God's work. Perhaps you should heed my sister's words... she seems to have the Lord's favor." Ana glimpses the flash of teeth in his smile a second before she hears the hiss of a broadsword sliding free of its leather sheath: that's Ethan's doing, and he snarls as he liberates his blade from its scabbard. Christian is not impressed: "You dare threaten a man in his house?"

The Duke barks out a laugh: "I do not threaten, Knight! I will see you answer for your crimes, though you may seek to deny them. We both know you have plotted against Her Grace the Queen and we both know you covet her throne. Your father died for that contemptible dream—now you will follow!"

Before she can think the better of it, Ana starts towards the hearth, ducking past Ethan to grip the sword by the mantel. She's never had an easy time of lifting the thing, but this time she doesn't need to drag it very far; Christian is only steps away, unarmed and vulnerable. How can he defend himself, if not with his father's sword?

A minute headshake stops her short.

"What's this?" Ethan laughs. "You let your wife squire for you, do you? That explains a great deal... I suppose we know how your wedding night unfurled! Tell me, Grey, was your bride gentle? Did she care to teach all that I had—"

Christian may wish her to stand down, but Ana is no soldier. This will come as no surprise to anyone. So when she uses the sword as a great big club to whack Ethan over the shoulders, she doesn't think of orders or strategy, only of shutting up a boy who grew up running his tongue all too often. He doesn't have Kate to keep him out of trouble anymore, so Ana will do it in her stead—and while she's at it, she'll pretend she's not trying to save her own skin.

"Anastasia!" This, from Christian, is more outraged astonishment than reprimand. Every eye in the room is upon her, both lords and ladies, and hired hands staring at her in disbelief.

Shame fills her. Indeed, she'd been trying to hit Ethan over the head, but he's too damn tall.

She lets the sword clatter to the ground, miming her meaning quickly. _You have no right to bring up my affairs_, she tells Ethan. _You are a guest in this house. You are Kate's brother. Do not dishonor her with petty disputes_. The last is a plea, though it's all too likely the Duke won't heed it.

"Slower," Christian begs, having come closer to help retrieve the sword in one fluid bend. "Slow down, I can't understand you."

And he mustn't, but Ana can't very well say as much. Her eyes find Ethan's cold gaze. Shards of light lie reflected in his blade and they prick her eyes like ice crystals. She has to blink to see him despite the uncomfortable glint and glimmer.

"Your wife had better manner when I knew her," Ethan crows. "She is lucky I do not strike women."

If her heart could still break for the betrayal of those she once thought friends, Ana might crumble to her knees. She doesn't. Christian is a stiff, stern line of discontent at her side. She sees his fist close around the sword hilt. Hers falls upon it. _No_. Now is not the time for war. She won't be the prize disputed between two knights: for one thing, Christian already won her and Ethan is only speaking thus to goad him. He wants to see Christian dead; he doesn't care what he must do or say to make that come to pass.

"Well," says a voice in the doorway. "It seems I've missed quite the excitement." Velvet robes lined with fur brush the carpet, letting glimpses of dark satin slippers peek out. Wreathed so sumptuously is only a man, one whom Ana recognizes from her wedding.

Ethan's sword dips, its arrowed tip dragging to the floor in a dull, empty slash. "Bishop, what... what brings you here?" He doesn't mean Lorcastle; he means this house. Surely a Bishop doesn't visit merchants in their humble abodes...

He's not alone in his surprise; Ana sees Lady Grey take to her feet at the sight, though there's no dearth of relief in her voice as she greets him with open arms. "Flynn! Oh, how good it is to see you! Do come in, please... Will you take wine? I heard you were visiting Castle Grey for the, um—for the Duke's nuptials. So good of you to come see us, old friend."

"I was delayed in leaving court," Bishop Flynn explains softly. "The Queen had need of me." He's somehow grown wizened since the last time Ana saw him, though old age in a man of the Church is probably to be admired. Even so, she can't help notice that the skin of his hands has grown translucent over the spidery outline of green veins. Jeweled rings hide most of the damage, but it's there should anyone care to examine it. Serving Kate is not an easy or an enviable task.

All the same, his presence has effectively diffused the strife brewing between Christian and the Duke. Lady Grey is too skilled in the art of conversation to let such an opportunity slip through her fingers. "Is the Queen not well?"

The bishop shakes his head. "No, I left her in good health and spirits. But she—" He spares a glance to her brother. "She finds the business of governing a country quite taxing. She's done no favors by all the proclamations of love from the kings of Spain and France. Foreign ambassadors come to court every day with new gifts, and promises, and songs written in her name... It's quite the spectacle."

"Do you mock my sister, sir?"

"_Your Excellency_," Flynn corrects and the look he bestows upon Ethan is icy. Ana understands why he doesn't deign to answer the question: the head of his order lives in Rome and has a direct line to God. Kate and Ethan are mere children in his eyes, pretenders to a throne of man. As Ana stands to pour his wine at Lady Grey's bidding, her gaze inevitably meets Flynn's.

The bishop recognizes her too, he must, and his expression seems to thaw a little. "From what I hear, there has been no shortage of agitation in Lorcastle, either..."

Christian perks up at this: "You've already heard about Mia?"

"I would that my carriage had the speed of a country rumor—thank you, Lady Anastasia—but I've no such luck." The bishop nods, wetting his lips in a newly filled goblet. "Aye, I heard... though I confess I still struggle to believe she conjured up a storm."

"Why?" growls Ethan, his ego still bruised from the last volley. "She _is_ a witch, after all..."

"—a witch who called upon God and was heard?" Christian snorts. "Some witchcraft!"

Bishop Flynn cants his head. "Is that indeed what happened?"

The story is stilted and peppered with contradictions; every one present saw the events through different eyes. Lady Grey speaks only of seeing Mia freed from her bonds, but not how she became so fortunate. Christian describes the rainstorm that put out the flames meant to take her life. Ethan plays at conviction, but he's the one Ana can read best of all and she recognizes a flash of doubt in his eyes when their eyes meet. No one knows quite how the blade got to be in Mia's possession or what it means that she shed blood to curse them.

On one thing they all agree: Mia vanished from the priory grounds like a wisp of smoke and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

"She had _help_," Ethan insists, "and I'd wager it came from this house."

Christian grins toothily. "Shall we? You seem to have a castle I want."

"Gentlemen," Flynn interjects. "This is no good. Your sister is out in the world and friendless and you're here jesting?"

It's Lady Grey who parries that rebuke. "Where else should he be, Your Excellency? Out there, in the woods with the hunting hounds and all the other—rabid pups in the Duke's employ?" She may play at being a well-bred, devout and law-abiding woman, but at times like these Ana has no doubt that Lady Grey was forged in the same furnace as her son and daughter. Her silvery eyes scrutinize the bishop without balking at the sight of the ponderous cross dangling from his belt. "My son," she adds testily," is innocent of whatever treason was perpetrated at noon today. The whole village and your replacement, the good Prior, will both attest to this. As for your accusation, Duke—"

A commotion in the doorway stops her short. One of Ethan's men comes forth, boots squelching with mud as he whispers in the Duke's ear. Ethan nods. His sword slides back into its scabbard.

"Save your words," the Duke says, gruff and yet somehow _pleased_ with himself. "We've found your daughter. My men are bringing her into the village now."

The change in Lady Grey is immediate. "No," she murmurs, but it's so soft only Ana really hears her desperate exhale. It was unavoidable: the woodland between Castle Grey and Lorcastle is peopled with wild things and travelers of all kinds. If they didn't feast on Mia's flesh, first, the odds were that Ethan's men would catch her instead.

It's just happened sooner than Ana expected. She starts forward, past Christian, who looks wrecked, and Taylor, who hovers by the door with his hands folded into fists. Their courtyard is small and cramped, and with the afternoon rain to saturate the soil, it has become mostly marshland. Ana stops on the front step, pinned by the sight of armed guards tugging a limber woman-child down the village lane. Neighbors are peeking out despite today's events: to see a witch burn is a piece of light entertainment, but to see her escape and be brought back to justice in chains makes for a hushed, fearsome occasion. This is one story they'll be telling their grandchildren about.

A tangle of black hair hangs in Mia Grey's face, concealing her know-it-all grins and clever eyes. It's too dark to see her properly, but her limbs are pale and her shift is caked with mud. It must be her.

Ana can't hold back a sob, even with hands pressed tight to her lips to smother it.

"Well done," says Ethan, donning his riding gloves as he steps into the courtyard. His boots sink three inches deep into the mud, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Where did you find the hussy?"

The soldiers are all tall brutes in full chainmail armor, though why they should have gone so festooned to hunt a mere slip of a girl, Anastasia can't say. Her throat works, but no sound has ever—could ever—come out. One of the guards explains that they found Mia some three leagues north. She must have been trying to get away from the Lorcastle by the only road she knew.

"To Stonemarsh, perhaps?" Ethan suggests. "What were you going to do," he asks of Mia, "assassinate the Queen?" He barks out a laugh, but there's a mad glint in his eye.

Ana watches, horrified, as he liberates his sword anew.

Lady Grey cries out to stop them. Christian grips Flynn by the arms. "Bishop, you must do something. This isn't the law; this isn't the proper form—" Witches are burned, he means, not executed in cold blood by their spurned lovers. This is murder.

Any hope placed upon the Church is thwarted the moment Flynn shakes his head. "I'm sorry, my boy. The Queen has given her accord... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but there's nothing I can do." He has the good sense to draw back as Christian makes to grip his throat. Fingers come very close to snagging at his jugular, like a lion reaching out a clawed paw when its fangs have all fallen out.

Taylor snags Christian away before he can do more harm, but this doesn't stop the soldiers drawing their swords. One is near enough that Ana can smell the metallic tang of dried blood on his blade.

"Your Grace," Flynn interjects. "If I may—with your permission, I would pardon the girl before it is too late." The groveling might be a little much, but it does the trick.

The Duke hesitates, his sword held aloft. "Be quick about it."

"Flynn! Flynn, you _can't_, damn you. She's my sister—She's no witch!" Christian's cries devolve rapidly into unintelligible hysteria as his sobs catch up to his hopeless supplications. He was frantic enough this morning when they tied Mia to a stake and lit the logs beneath it; now he's out of his mind. He fights Taylor's hold like a feral creature with its foot caught in a trap. He may try to escape, but his squire doesn't let go for all the snarling abuse in the world. If he did, Christian would only put his own neck under the blade and then where would they be? Two lives lost only for Ethan of Ashlake to feel safe among his stolen riches.

Beside them in the doorway, Lady Grey seems significantly diminished. Despair twists her lips into a thin line. Ana would like nothing more than to go to her aid, but there's a sword and it's pointed at her throat and she can't seem to make her feet move. She's rooted to the spot, now as she was in that armory what feels like centuries ago, when Ethan laughingly ordered her to pick a blade. What good is courage? _This_ is the work of weapons and the men who wield them.

This: a young woman kneeling in the sopping dirt and weeping for the depravities of others. Mia must be of Ana's age, or a little younger. It doesn't seem possible that she should die.

Not like this.

And yet the Duke draws his sword up and over his head, unblinking. Bishop Flynn brushes back the hair from Mia's face one last time, tells her all that her sins are forgiven if she embraces the Lord and promises that God will be merciful. He hesitates, too, his brows knotting into a frown that only Ana can see from where she stands, but if he dithers, it's only for a moment. There's no salvation in the works.

Flynn steps back, out of reach of the Duke's deadly swing. His robes and the heavy crucifix at his belt dip into the mud, velvet and brass glinting where they've been soiled.

Ethan expels a long breath, surrendering triumphantly to the act.

Christian screams "No!" for the last time.

The notion spread by songs and poetry is that a beheading a man—or in this case, a woman—only takes a single stroke. It is a false one.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter nine**

The brazier paints spectral shadows across his wife's body. These are not to be confused with the winsome flush of desire. If anything, Anastasia looks more gargoyle than temptress, her fragile form become ash-grey since their wedding and her features drawn sharp with misery. The jut of her hips is just about visible under the thin shift she wears to bed; her collarbones protrude like jagged ridges on the face of cliff. Only her hair is the same lustrous curtain drooping to conceal them from the world.

Privacy is the least of their concern.

Christian tries to concentrate on being in bed with a once-beautiful woman, but his thoughts keep wandering. Guilt swarms like a virus. His back aches and his battered fingers bear fresh callouses from piling stones upon Mia's grave. The priory wouldn't see a witch buried in the village cemetery, so Christian and Taylor had to take her out into the woods like an unwanted babe and crack the hard earth to make for her a final resting place.

She rests now in unsanctified ground, her body decaying and her soul doomed to wander, lost, for all eternity.

A rustle of cloth brings him back: it's only Ana's hand dipping boldly between Christian's thighs to cup his soft prick. He can't see her eyes from where he lies curled up on his side, but the brazen attempt forces a startled, humourless laugh from his lungs. "Don't bother," he grits out. "I have no love left in me." He is a pale and shrivelled thing and Ana should not debase herself by touching him. And yet she does not desist.

Christian grasps her wrist. "No. _I_ tell you when we fuck." Harsh words are to be expected from a harsh man and for once he thoroughly means to wound. At least in doing so he will remember what it is to have power over someone, albeit power of the wrong kind and over the wrong foe.

His wife shakes off his hold with a small, unhappy sigh. _Brute_, she must be thinking. _Fiend_. But there are no words spoken in the silence of their bedchamber, only the howling of the wind through the rafters, speaking with the voice of his ancestors. They are right to rage on and on like this; he has let them all down. He should have made war on Ethan while he still could, or stabbed the Queen clean through the heart when he had the chance. Then perhaps his sister might still be alive, if shamed, if living in a prison. Drawing breath at her expense is but a poor trade. What does it matter that he should have a wife? He never wanted her. Ana tugs at him like a dog with a bone.

Why can't she let him be?

"What in God's name do you want from me, woman?" Were he a lord with servants and castles and honour, he'd never dare address a woman so. He's not. The pieces of him still capable of compassion have been excised like a tumour. He turns to face his wife with scorn in his eyes and the will to lash out coursing hotly through his veins. If she cries, he's sure to strike her.

He should, just for behaving like a slattern. A better man would know that to spare the rod is to cultivate this kind of insolence. Christian raises his hand.

So does Ana, though hers shapes a signed query, an answer.

"What… Slower," Christian orders, hesitating. Ana obeys and he repeats the words she fashions them from fists and crooked digits. "The day—the hour? The hour is…" He can't help feel like a schoolboy again, though none of his language tutors ever climbed into bed beside him or offered comforts of the flesh. "The hour is ripe for—_to_… to what? I don't understand what—"

His wife's hands mime a curving swell over her belly. Christian's thoughts may be elsewhere, but they swerve back to his lady quickly enough at that. Why should Ana want to bear his son? He tells her as much, and then frowns to see her scrabble out of bed. The lamplight flickers, dancing, throwing her shadow upon the walls until she returns with ink and paper and sits cross-legged on the bed to write.

When she is finished, the paper is turned towards him. _Sons will give you joy, my lord, and continue your family's proud line. These are uncertain times._

"And I'm the only heir left," Christian surmises. This isn't love, it's duty; Ana would know all about sacrificing her body on the altar of obligation to queen and country. She'd never consider it otherwise. Christian lets the paper drop from his hand to the bed. "My lady… were you to bear me sons, you would only rouse Kate's ire. Have you not heard? We breed traitors and witches in this family. You want no part of that."

Ana's eyes narrow sharply. She couldn't look less convinced if he told her water is wine and the forests speak with human tongue. A hand cups his cheek. He's done nothing to earn her mercy. "Madam—" But Ana will not heed him. She's hardly tentative when her lips find his, uneasy in her newfound role as instigator, and her brows furrow when he doesn't reciprocate.

"Do you think Kate would late a child of mine survive me?" The rebuke gets her attention, at least, though she nods with little confidence. "Of course she wouldn't," Christian sneers. "She'd push her bastard brother through the nursery door if it meant extinguishing the name of Grey forever. Don't tell me Kate doesn't have the taste for war; I've seen her on the battlefield, all clad in plate and chainmail. Her surcoat is soaked in the blood of those who underestimate her appetite for murder." Why assume she'd balk at killing children when she has young maids assassinated in cold blood?

To Christian's great relief, Ana takes the censure to heart. It wouldn't take much to stir his passions: the fear of losing his head to her charms leaves Christian breathless, but there is a time for finding pleasure in his wife's bed and a time for mourning. This feels like desperation born of Ethan's sacrilege. "Not tonight," he tells Anastasia again, much gentler than his first rebuke. It's not her fault, she only offered to be his comfort and his mistress out of kindness.

In another life and married to another man, she would have made a wonderful mother.

* * *

Taylor thinks it cowardly and cruel to deny her and as they break their fast together in the morning, he tells Christian as much in no uncertain terms. His vehemence alone is enough to make Christian feel glad he kept the circumstances of Ana's offer to himself: Taylor is sharp and clever and knows too much of Christian's affairs already. Better not to pour fuel onto his fire.

"There's a good chance the execution was the last straw," Christian hedges. "I do believe she's lost her ever-loving mind…" If not that, then she is in danger of sacrificing her only allies for the sake of bearing Christian an heir not likely to live past infancy.

Shoulders rolling into a shrug, Taylor sighs his dissent: "Your wife's got a good head on her shoulders. I reckon there's not much that gets past her. If she wants a family, don't deny her. Not like you'll get a better offer, with your temper and your wealth."

"Do you think I haven't sought work all over town?" His voice is flinty with insult, but the shame is his own to bear; he's been unable to provide for his family, his pride is holding by a thread.

And Taylor severs even that. "You'll find no work in Lorcastle," he tells him, "because there's not a soul in town who doesn't know you for Lord Christian Grey. People're afraid."

"I can't change men's minds."

"Nor should you, but if you want to move past survivin' in that merchant's house of yours, you'd best find a way to show 'em you're more than finery and birth right. I mean no disrespect m'lord, but you're married to the handsomest woman in this wretched town. She may not speak, but she's well liked and she's industrious. The townspeople will trade with her."

"Am I supposed to carve my fortunes on my wife's hide, then?" A cruel thing to say and unkind to direct the vitriol towards Taylor, but disgrace makes for poor counsel. He's been loyal all these years, even when Christian could no longer pay for his keep. He loved Christian's family as if it was his own. And yet to hear him speak of Anastasia like he understands her better than her husband will not be borne. "You give her too much credit," Christian counters into his cup. Ale tastes bitter to him now, much like Ana's kisses. Shame pollutes all.

His squire stands, his face unreadable. "And you give her too little, m'lord. I have to get back to the smithy. That Hyde's got a temper on 'im and he don't like us to be like. I dawdle any longer and he'll start dockin' my pay. Will you be needin' me later?"

"Your time is your own, Taylor. I'm not your master." What's more, Christian can hunt on his own, with no man's help. The woods are familiar territory: once his family's backyard, this is where he learned to ride like a knight, to lay snares and shoot a bow. This is where he last saw Elliot before his brother rallied the banners and went to meet Kate Kavanagh in battle. Ethan the Usurper may lay claim all he likes, he cannot unravel the past.

There is a double reason to traipse through the forest now.

Christian makes his way through weeds and the nettles to his sister's graveside, quiver full of arrows untouched and only wildflowers in his fist. Feral creatures must have padded through the dirt in the night time, their uncovered paw prints crisp in the mid-morning frost. At least the rocks were too heavy for scraggly limbs and keen noses. _Let her have that_, Christian prays. His sister may not have a grave their mother can visit or a stone-chiselled cross with her name engraved for generations to come, but if God is kind, perhaps he will allow her to rest unmolested by the beasts that roam this earth.

Clouds thicken overhead as Christian struggles to his feet. The days feel shorter without her in the world. There's one less person to fight for and the greenwood won't let him forget it.

It takes the better part of the afternoon to lay a handful of snares. For lunch, Christian makes do with stale bread and a mouldy apple, mindful first to pluck out the worms. Impossible not to think of Mia and her eager grins whenever she would dare him to eat every oddity from orchard dirt to Mother's smelling salts; impossible to forget how she'd laugh when he did her bidding, delight bending her at the waist and pride flaring in Christian's belly as he proved himself worthy of her idolatry. He had been fearless for her back then, in the now-forgotten days when Father lived and Elliot stood next in line to shoulder the heavy mantle of Family and Duty.

The world had been beautiful then, the days warm.

Christian shivers, glancing up to the unfriendly skies. Sparrows flutter from branch to branch in restless search of food, a few crows flapping their wings in lazy pursuit of warmer currents, but the more majestic birds have all fled. There are no rabbits or foxes in the wood, no deer with curious, trusting eyes. The sun is growing dim. Anastasia will be back from the market soon, her rough hands feeding the chicks and stirring the fire. Lady Grey will sit with her as they darn threadbare tunics and mend old cloaks. The night will come once more. If he closes his eyes, he can see the scene like a painterly portrait: no movement, just warm hues fading into a field of black.

He may not relish the thought of going back empty-handed, but not to return at all would be worse. His mother's already lost two children. For the sake of pride, he decides to detour by the snares he set one last time, in hopes that something—even a field rat—will have caught. No movement on the last three, but the second has been disturbed, twigs and rotting foliage all mussed around the perimeter of the trap. The tracks are too broad to be paw prints.

_Travellers_, Christian thinks. _Or thieves_.

"Look what we got 'ere, boys," says a voice behind him.

Another chortles: "Not what. _Whom_. What'd you think you're doin' on the Duke's land, lad?"

Their uniforms lack the markings of House Grey, but even if the ouroboros snake is absent, the glint of authority is vivid in the sheathed swords scabbarded in their belts. Christian counts a half dozen, peeling like shadows from the fast-descending dusk. Three of them he recognizes as the uninvited guests he saw outside his door the other night. The others are strangers. It hardly matters: these are Ethan's men, his lackeys.

Blood curdles in his veins like souring milk. "Gatherin' firewood," Christian lies. "Is the forest forbidden ground to the townspeople?" Even Ethan can't as stupid as to ordain such a law. He'll have a riot on his hands.

"Mighty well-armed for gatherin' wood," observes one of the men.

"There a law against being well-armed?" The retort is whip-swift and empty. No one here cares what his intentions were.

The first speaker, a man of some thirty or forty winters, taller even than Taylor and rounder in the face than Hyde, shakes his head with a magnanimous snort. "Not unless you're thinkin' of poachin' the Duke's game. _That's_ against the law." They've seen the snares; they must know he set them.

Christian stills his hand before it reaches the dagger in his belt. He's decent in a scuffle, but not against six men armed with swords and the excitement of an easy kill. "You can search me for fowl," Christian quips, holding his ground, "but you'll only be disappointed. I think the Duke's capon may have fled when you were all scouring the woodland for witches." _Mia, I'm sorry. _

"I like you," says Ethan's hound with the voice of man who is about give away a plans. "You've got a real mouth on you. Reckon that's 'cause no one's ever taught you humility."

"My priest tried, but I proved obdurate... That means—"

"I know what it means!" snarls the mercenary, incensed. "Men like you oughta know better than to call us slow. Particularly when it looks like we're the ones with them weapons, eh?"

Christian allows himself a smile. It's likely to be his last. "I was thinking more along the lines of logger-headed, but if you'd prefer…" He should learn to better hold his tongue.

It doesn't take much more to raise a sadist's heckles. "Oh," laughs the savage, "I'm going to enjoy fillin' your mouth, you lily-livered princox!"

There's barely time for Christian to balk at the unnatural, vile implication, his feet already retreating a step when the men jump him. Like rabid, incontinent dogs, they go for him with teeth bared and fists tight, sensing weakness.

His best bet is to flee in hopes that Ethan's men are too-well fed to keep pace with him for long. No such luck. Someone grabs hold of the bow slung across his shoulders and Christian tumbles face-first into the dirt, a heavy body pinning him down before he can make his escape. Christian shouts, lashes out with fingers hooked into claws. The syrupy warmth of blood splashes across his face; someone shouts and stumbles, but not fast enough for Christian to leap to his feet. He liberates a leg, kicking haphazardly and hoping rather than trying that he'll manage to knee his attacker in the soft parts of his belly. He can hear the jeering, the sporting laughter, but the world is growing darker above him, fear choking his breaths.

He fumbles his dagger out of its scabbard. Once, twice, he slashes empty air. On the third try, he sticks it into flesh and the weight bearing down upon him shifts abruptly. His attacker cries out in agony. It's a distraction, enough of a one for Christian to crawl away on hands and knees. _Get back on your feet_, he thinks. _Run. You must run_.

The laugher has devolved into taunts and they're coming for him now; a look back over his shoulder confirms it. They're coming with swords drawn. They'll kill him and take his severed head back to Anastasia to revel in their triumph.

A gnarled root catches Christian's ankle and he loses his balance. Someone—the diseased, snarling leader of the pack—shouts his name. Christian raises his knife to parry sword blow that never comes.

Shadows move, snaring around the men like living things. Two die with severed throats, their blood spurting warm over Christian's boots. The last one runs past, frantic, and Christian cranes his neck to see which direction to avoid when an arrow catches the man smack in the back. He goes down without another sound.

Christian pushes himself up, fingers scrabbling through dirt and dead leaves and—where is his dagger? He needs a weapon, some way to defend himself—

It's too late: the tip of a sword hovers inches from his nose, held aloft in a gloved hand. It wasn't shadows that killed Ethan's guards, but the men who look down on him now, their faces hooded, their cloaks filthy with mud and grass stains. They're marauders, to be sure, and they'll allow no bystanders to outlive their raid.

A shuddering breath fills Christian's lungs. If it's to be like this, then so be it; he'll look his doom in the eye. He won't blink before the final strike.

"Got yourself into a spot of trouble, hmm?" says the man holding him at sword point. His voice calls to mind summers spent play-fighting and the confusion of a teeming household; it rings with the eerily familiar cadences of Father's booming tenor. The blade wavers. "Hardly surprising: you were never one for war, little brother."

Christian gapes. It can't be. It isn't possible. And yet—"Elliot?"

His answer comes with the clatter of a broadsword tumbling into sopping mud.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Apologies for almost delay on this chapter. It took a couple of rewrites before I felt happy with it enough to post. Thank you so much for sticking with the story until now. Please know I read all of your reviews and I'm very touched by your kind words. We're almost in the last arc of the story; Kate's chickens will be coming home to roost very soon...**

**Chapter-specific w****arning: sexual content.**

* * *

**Chapter ten**

The strained tranquillity that settles over Lorcastle is swift and palpable, and does not alter the village for the better. People grow quiet and cowed in the marketplace, only a few discontented rumblings rising from the baker's as soldiers leave his shop with basketfuls of bread between them. Ana flattens her back to a stone wall, ducking her head. Only a fool would attract attention in these uncertain times. If rumours are to be believed, more than a few maids have learned the ways of men at the hands of Ethan's mercenary guards; fear and horror plague the village like unfriendly ghouls. No one dares speak their terror aloud for fear of summoning the Duke himself. At least as long as he stays cloistered in his castle, there are no more executions, no more death.

"Is there nothing left?" A woman asks, her shrill voice rising from inside the bakery. "None at all?"

"Those rats took everything!"

Ana hurries her steps, keen on putting distance between herself and the baker's ire in case his outrage should bring trouble. It makes no difference if one is quick-witted or slow, common or noble-born, not when the enemy wields a sharp blade and fears no judgment. The Duke is the law and the Law pardons no transgression, however small. No doubt the merry mood will pass once Ethan is done rejoicing in Lady Mia's death—a feather in his cap that even the superstitious people of Lorcastle denounce in hushed voices. To have the Prior burn her at the stake was one thing, but when she lived, when the Heavens parted to grant her pardon, the tide of condemnation turned against her accusers. Rather than pain himself a man of God, Ethan has only succeeded in drawing condemnation.

From the top of the hill between the priory and the village, Ana can see Castle Grey and the banners which flutter high from the summit of its highest towers. No sign of the ouroboros snake, only the Queen's rose seal on a field of white. Ethan fights in the Queen's name and his mistakes taint them both; were Ana still admitted at court, she would tell Kate this and urge distance from her half-brother. Crowns have fallen for less.

There is much toing and froing at the Castle, for preparations are in full swing for the Duke's wedding to Elena Lincoln. Perhaps with a wife at his side, Ethan will settle down and restore his troops. It is a dream worth praying for and as Ana makes her way into the priory, she vows to keep him in her thoughts.

The monks pay her no mind as she enters the church, empty basket in tow. At this hour, the grounds are empty and cold, a frigid wind descending from the north with the auguries of winter. Ana pulls her cloak closed at the neck and shifts the cowl to cover her hair both to keep the chill at bay and present herself before God with modesty befitting a beggar. It's not a sumptuous church they have in Lorcastle, nothing like the cathedral in Stonemarsh with its high altar and stained glass windows. The only saints who look down are carved in stone like sombre effigies in a graveyard.

The Virgin's statue is said to weep for those who deserve her mercy, but Ana has never seen it do so; she never comes at the right time. Candles leak wax at her stony feet, their soft glow beckoning Ana a little closer. She kneels before the Holy Mother as she did in Mia's dungeon, that horrible, lonely place never far from her thoughts. Nor is the sight of Mia's lifeless body likely to fade with time and prayer. Ana does not wish for it. She may not recall her father's face or Kate's careless smiles, but there are no cobwebs that can dim the vile sacrilege of Lady Mia's death. The poor child fell to murderous slander. How could God allow such a thing?

It is wrong to ask. Kate's tutors always said not to question the Almighty. In His great plan, every death is just. Ana tries to believe it, but when it comes to faith and prayer, her words are for the Virgin, not the Father of Heaven. _Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou amongst women. Blessed is-_

The echo of shuffling feet is as loud as a clarion call in the empty cathedral. Ana starts badly. "Forgive me," says a voice in the shadows. "I do apologize, I did not mean to frighten you, my lady." It is only Prior José, his earthy-brown robes cinched at the waist with rope, his sleek, black hair cut in a shiny bowl around flushed cheeks. "—only you did not see me coming in and it did not seem right to conceal my presence..."

Ana's heart pounds a vicious tattoo in her chest, but she shakes her head as if to say _it's all right_. She was merely startled, nothing more. No harm done. _Hello, Prior_, she signs with her hands, sitting up a little.

Candle light catches in the Prior's toothy smile. He seems pleased to see her. The sentiment is not shared. "I was hoping to have another chance," he tells her blithely, "to speak with you. Please, will you sit a moment?" During mass, the pews nearest to the altar are reserved for the Duke and his close coterie of thugs, but the Prior thinks nothing of leading Ana to a seat there. "I heard what happened to your sister-in-law. A sad business. A very sad business... I would have told the Duke myself that God does not sanction such brutality, but..."

_You didn't_, Ana signs with hasty reproach. So much for keeping quiet and steering clear of trouble.

Prior José has the good grace to look chastened. "I did not know," he offers apologetically. "I was praying for Lady Mia's soul, for guidance from the Lord. By the time they told me she had been arrested, it was already too late." His voice is heavy with distress. "I understand you were there to witness the barbarous deed?"

Despite herself, Ana nods. What good is concealing that she saw the revolting smile on Ethan's lips as his sword fell, when the whole world now knows him for a butcher of innocents? If there was a time to speak in his favour, then it was in wartime, when he was a hero and not this cruel monster, this Cain crushing all in his hunger for power. _It is not Mia's soul I pray for_, Ana tells the Prior, _it is yours and mine. We are sinners for doing nothing to stand in Ethan's way_. She only dares say it because Christian isn't here to decipher her words. Her husband is in a bad way already; he doesn't need to know that he is not the only one suffering for his sister's sacrifice

"I am a man of God," José protests, rising abruptly to his feet. "I am not a soldier, to fight off the Duke and his men! What could any of us have done to save that poor girl? The Queen herself signed an order proclaiming her a witch and sentencing her to burn!" His voice reverberates like thunder, an echo fading into hushed silence.

Yet after Mia's tour-de-force, the prior's outburst leaves to be desired. _The Queen is but a woman. Her brother is of mortal stock. We are all as flawed as God made us. Can you truly believe there are some who hold monopoly on truth?_

"The Holy Father in Rome," comes the rote answer, recited rather than confirmed, and offered not without a snort of mirthless laughter to chase it. "Oh Heavens, what have I done..."

Ana is no scholar to debate the teachings of God or contradict a cleric's knowledge of the world; she can't even make her husband understand her when she offers herself to him at night, in their marital bed. But this – this she can do.

A hand on his forces the Prior to face her. _I wish to see Bishop Flynn. Could you arrange an audience?_

"The Bishop?" José seems taken aback. "Of course, but he is not likely to have the time… It seems Lady Lincoln has been suffering terrible night terrors since the trial. He is with her often, but sleeping draughts and prayer have done her no good thus far." His eyes track the length of the nave, into shadows where only ghosts are hiding. He adds in a softer voice, "I do not believe I should be telling you this, but I have heard it Lady Lincoln dreams of your husband's sister. I fear the Duke's transgressions have damned his nuptials before they are begun…"

It's possible that his regret is sincerely meant. It's possible that he breaks another woman's confidence to tell Ana her secrets out of remorse for the part he played in Mia's death.

It is equally possible that good Prior José foists Elena's troubles onto Ana's scraggy shoulders out of thirst for gossip and little else. Men of God are can be as tone-deaf as their less pious counterparts.

_Could you arrange a visit?_ Ana insists, mouthing _please_, lest the Prior think this is a whim.

To his credit, José only takes her hand between his palms, warming her icy fingers. "Could I… May I ask why? _I_ will gladly hear your confession if you wish…"

But Ana doesn't wish it and if she is to answer, she must retrieve her hand. Is that a sigh on the Prior's lips or did she imagine it? No matter: _Bishop Flynn has the Queen's ear, _she explains_. I do not believe Kate will permit her brother to continue his campaigns unchecked if we get word to her_. It is a gamble, no doubt, but Kate will surely see reason if it comes from a preacher's mouth. She must. Peace only hangs by a thread.

"Ah." José seems disappointed. "Should not your husband speak of this instead?"

A man would ask the question.

* * *

It is thin gruel and stale bread for supper, but Christian doesn't to take note. "Shall I hand you the last of the bowls to lick clean?" his mother teases, and it is the first time she's sounded like herself since the trial. Ana doesn't fault her reserve. These days there isn't much to make one feel merry and blithe, nor welcome nights spent jesting by the fireside. Nor open doors to strangers, though there are more beggars in the streets than there were when Anastasia first arrived in Lorcastle, and the winds blow colder every night.

Christian's brows furrow on his severe brow, expression changing from sweetly angelic to less than. "I had a good day, Mother." The edge of a warning is in his voice.

"You enjoyed your hunt?"

That he came back empty handed was a disappointment, but Ana was glad when he came back at all. Now he sits at their table with a rare smile still on his lips and she cannot even smell ale on his breath. _Perhaps tonight_, she thinks and catches Lady Grey's eye across the room. There is work yet to be done before they bed down for the night. Ana's hands are growing rough with callous from rinsing so many dishes and scrubbing pots morning and night, but she is warmer when she works and does not need to waste the wood to make it so; if Christian notices, he must not care enough to speak of her newfound coarseness. Perhaps it is better this way.

Lady Grey excuses herself quickly after dinner. She has little appetite for food or conversation and no longer delights Ana with tales of her life as mistress of a castle. In her absence, the kitchen feels drab and cold. Ana tries to work quickly, but even so the moon is high in a cloudless sky as she steps outside to wring and hang her dish cloth.

"Don't be startled," she hears Christian say as she makes to turn. "It is only I."

A month ago, he wouldn't have stooped to calling himself _just_ anything, but burying a sister must have taken its toll. Ana reels around to face her lord husband. Tries on a smile.

"My lady." He's strangely officious tonight, a smile that's all dimples wavering on his lips. "Do I interrupt? Are you finished with your tasks?" The kitchen is not his domain and never has been. Ana can well believe his trepidation is more real than mocking. She shakes her head. "Good, then…" Hands cup her cheeks and the first thing Anastasia notices, it is that Christian's palms are warm on her skin; then he kisses her and even that small observation seems trivial.

The number of times her husband's lips have been pressed to hers is easily counted on the fingers of one hand. None have caused the fluttering of hope that kindles in her chest now. _Perhaps tonight_—

Christian withdraws, seeking her eyes with his silvery gaze. "I mean to make things right between us. Too long we have lived as foes—and I do not wish that, my lady. Do you?" What a senseless query! Ana shakes her head as best she can with Christian still holding her cheeks. Even that small, aborted effort seems to please him. "I will do better."

It is too much. Ana covers the distance between them with a desperate sigh, her fingers tight in Christian's tunic. She's prayed for him to desire her, to treasure her as a wife and lady; as great a shame as it is that it should take his sister's death to bring them here, perhaps now they can forge a family. It can be done. Ana will take a stall in the marketplace once the chickens begin to lay eggs. Christian will surely find work once the villagers swallow their fear.

Ethan will leave them be.

Her heart sinks. Christian must feel it, because he withdraws, nipping more softly at her lips. "My sweet lady wife, let me take you to bed and love you as you deserve…" It is a request made a sword point, for all that Christian isn't the one to wield the blade.

Ana cannot refuse him again.

Only the most infinitesimal nod is enough to satisfy her husband, whose hands curl around her arms as he pulls her near. He kisses sweetly, his lips stained with watered wine and his breaths fanning against Ana's cheek. It's no lie that she has dreamt of this while lying beside him in their bed, but to have him take notice of her is not as simple as she'd hoped. Ana backs up a step, overwhelmed, and Christian follows. His body is broad and hard against hers. He steps on her foot, which only serves to make her retreat even further against the bare brick wall.

"How beautiful you are," Christian murmurs. "How lovely…" He sounds drunk, but Ana sat beside him at the dinner table and knows full well he had only a little wine. His cheeks, she realizes suddenly, are ruddy with desire, not liquor. He yearns for her truly.

Her own hands find his waist, the trim, warm wings of his hipbones. It is the first time she's touched him like this and a part of her still fears the appearance of debauchery. Good Christian wives do not throw themselves at their husbands; they tolerate their attentions and perform duty as ordained by the Lord. _Oh, to hell with it._

Ana's palms cup Christian's arse through his breeches, pulling him tightly to her. That line of firmness against her belly isn't the contour of a blade and she isn't so pale and fragile that she'll lie upon the bed with hands clasped and eyes closed while Christian gets on with it. She did that once. It was far from enjoyable.

"My lady is eager?" laughs Christian against her ear. "Ah, but is she moist…"

Breath stutters in her chest when she feels his bare fingers tracing down the inside of her thigh. Christian means to have her right here, in the kitchens. He will hoist up her skirts and press her into the wall; he's already halfway there. Ana feels her cheeks flame. This isn't decent. She makes to retrieve her hands, to bid Christian wait until they are in their bedchamber, with the door shut and locked and no one to disturb them. As it stands, anyone could walk in and see - and what of her honour then?

But Christian will give her no quarter. His mouth is greedy upon hers, his kisses rough and hungry, filled with the sort of desire she would fear in another man. When he works a hand between her thighs, her thoughts skid off the path of frantic second-guessing. Though rough with sword-callus, Christian keeps his touch gentle, only brushing against the warmest, most sensitive part of her. If her body is his property, than that piece of territory has been much neglected until now: a sad thing, for as it turns out, Christian can be a gentle master.

Ana's head cants back against the wall, exposing her throat to her husband's lips. She cannot help but will him closer, all fears aside.

"Does this please you, Anastasia?" His voice is harsh against her ear, a puff of warm air and then the flick of a tongue against the lobe. "Undo the laces of your gown, my sweet. Let me look upon you."

It takes her a moment to understand his meaning and then Ana's fingers are grappling with the ribbons and ties mechanically, without thought. An order given must be obeyed – she can do no less when he is caressing her with such care, parting her folds with a single digit and then, her breath catching audibly, entering her deeply. It is a welcome thing to find her lungs filling with breaths unrestricted, but Christian is a liar. He does far more than look upon her naked bosoms.

A whirlwind of pleasure takes her then, too swift to be denied, too unexpected for her to make ready. It begins in her belly and radiates as warm as the sun, as the slide of a pillow betwixt her thighs when she and Kate – when Ana –

Her knees all but buckle as she rocks her hips into Christian's talented hand. If she doesn't crumble altogether to the floor, it is only because he is there to hold her up.

"Well then," Christian chuckles, kissing playfully between her heaving breasts, "I'd say you are a woman changed." He seems to take credit for the transformation, but Ana can see his flushed cheeks and she can hear the catch in his voice. When she reaches between their bodies with a trembling hand, it's to discover wetness at the front of his breeches. He is hardly unmoved. An apology brims on his tongue: "You overwhelmed me—"

There is no need for reasons or contrition. He took his pleasure and that is his privilege as husband and lord. As lover. For once, it is Ana who silences Christian with a violent kiss, their noses bumping awkwardly and her fingers reaching down to stroke him through seed-sodden garments.

_Would that I could have this Christian always_, she cannot help think, _and do away with his wrathful twin… _It's no surprise at all: a woman in her position survives on wishful thinking but must make do with shortcomings. Yet how can she deny Christian when he looks so vivacious, so alive? The hunt must have been enjoyable indeed, if he returned from it so invigorated.


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Warning for sexist & bad language and a hefty bit of era-appropriate but still not okay racism/xenophobia.**

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**Chapter 11**

Christian's tread upon the floor is stubbornly soft and yet when he looks up, it is to discover Anastasia's eyes tracking his every movement. It should be unsettling. Her hair is wild about her pale head, chestnut curls sprawled across the pillow like a pagan crown. On her lips lingers a sweet, tender smile as if she can't fathom why her husband is taking such pains.

All Christian feels at the rare sight is an unwelcome sense of shame. "Did I wake you?" Ana shakes her head. It's with some surprise that Christian finds he cannot look away. His heart's never been in the conquering game, so admittedly he has little notion of how to walk out after bedding a handsome woman, but there's far more to it than gawkiness.

He hovers, feels awkward, and his heartbeat seems to stutter sloppily in his chest. The evening they spent together is vivid in memory. It colours his cheeks the crimson shade of ripe tomatoes.

"You should rest," he advises, tugging on a boot. "The moon is still high, it won't be light for many hours..." He feels more than a quiver of shame for leaving his wife at such a late hour.

At least Ana isn't in the habit of taking him to task for his many transgressions. She props an elbow against the bedding, sits up a little just to watch him dress; Christian tries not to feel self-conscious under her scrutiny. An air of benevolence hangs in the room, but it becomes tainted the more he thinks of the cost. When he glances her way, he finds the covers have slipped down Ana's body, revealing the generous swell of her naked breasts, a flash of bony ribs.

She's much too thin, her collarbones pale and visible beneath ashen skin, but there's a glow to her flesh now, a newfound warmth. Their midnight frolic has yielded that much.

Before he can think the better of it, Christian crosses over to the bed, pins his knee against the bedding and dips his head for a soft, chaste kiss. He means it to be a peck, nothing more, but Anastasia folds a hand in his tunic and it's so very, very hard to pull away from her. He does, eventually, sighing as they part. "Dream of me, my lady." It's a foolish thing to say, but lovers must be permitted folly otherwise only tolerated of children and madfolk for they are no more in control of their hearts than the naïve and senseless.

He takes the steps two by two on his way out, forgetting to mind stealth now that Ana has seen him leave. Her form is a pale shadow in the window, but she doesn't raise a hand to wave him off. Christian doesn't linger on amorous goodbyes. He'll hope the lane remains ignorant of his roaming for a little while longer. As for Mother finding out—a part of him hopes she will, if only that the wonder of Elliot's return may be shared with the rest of their small, grief-stricken family.

Yet wonder won't keep them safe should Ethan's men break down their door again, so witlessness must stand a little longer.

The thought keeps him warm on his long trek, afoot, into the woods. With a bright, full moon visible through denuded branches, he can at least find his way to the edge of town unseen. The rest is touch and instinct, his progress only slowed by the lack of a mount. If he didn't fear rumour percolating into the castle, he'd risk a horse, but he does and so the journey takes the better part of an hour, then two, time wasted as he attempts to retrace footsteps already grown soft with muck and crackling, browned leaves.

He doesn't find Elliot so much as his brother finds him. There is no sword point, this time, only the flash of shark-like grin in the darkness. "You're as furtive as a trumpet blast," is muttered from the thicket of trees on Christian's right. The sound is sudden and nearly sends Christian tripping over his own feet in the darkness. "Have I taught you nothing, little brother?"

"Rhyme," Christian shoots back, aiming for acerbic and sounding more like a petulant child instead. Elliot always could draw out that part of him that craves love and validation from his betters. "A trifling bit of needlework…"

Elliot's throat rumbles with a deep, mordant cackle. "Thank the Heavens for your voice, for you always had two left hands and two left feet." He peels out of the shadows at last looking much like a ghoul, the hood of his riding cloak pulled up so that most of his unshaven face is hidden.

Christian would be put off by the change in him if he weren't so preoccupied with joy at seeing his brother again and being certain, this time, that he is no hallucination.

"How fares our mother?" Elliot asks, clasping his hand. "You told her nothing, as we discussed?"

It pained him to lie at supper, but Elliot was adamant and Christian wants to believe his brother knows best. With their father gone, there is a vacuum in their lives, a chair empty at their table. He needs Elliot to fill it. "Mother grieves your absence—and Mia's," Christian says, because one sibling may be returned, but another rests in the cold ground not far from here. She did not come back to them, by God's will or any other preternatural force.

Elliot's expression grows sombre with the mention. "Our sister's blood will be avenged," he growls. "This I have sworn and will swear again. I shall wring the Bastard's neck with my bare hands, skin him like a—"

"Better tell me what you plan to do next," Christian interjects, "and how I may help you."

They have walked only a few yards and yet in that distance, the forest has changed to crackling fire and the scent of charred meat. Elliot's men scarcely even glance his way; their master has said Christian is no threat and they, like loyal servants, trust him to be right. Christian thinks of Taylor and loyalty that can't be bought and his heart clenches near painfully in his chest.

Elliot heaves a ponderous sigh: "It's a cruel thing I must tell you, brother."

"You can rely on me." Does he believe Christian weak? Fraternal ribbing is one thing, but the idea that Elliot doesn't extend him the same faith he puts in his companions leaves Christian balking like a virgin in a pleasure house.

"I know," Elliot demurs half-heartedly.

It is no use. Christian stops him, hand gripping hard at a chiselled arm. "I've been a steadfast guardian of our father's memory, I even prostrated myself before that Kavanagh _bitch_ while you were God knows where—"

Elliot's gaze narrows, his brows knitting together tightly. "Say that again." _If you dare._

"I didn't mean…" So much for playful jests and hoping Elliot will be his captain. Christian sucks in a breath, the night air cold and crisp in his throat. "These past months since Father's death, our world has grown small."

"I hear you have made a new home in Lorcastle?"

Christian tells him about the house, the four stone walls and the silent hearth, the chicks clucking merrily in their crate. He spares his brother details of the hunger pains that have crippled his family for so long, speaks even less of Anastasia. It's Elliot who first brings up the subject: "I hear you have a new wife… Is she fair?"

The firelight warms his hands, his face, yet Christian knows his cheeks are flushing for reasons other than heat. He squares his shoulders as they drop to sit on a battered log, between men who look too hardened for light conversation. "She is the Queen's handmaiden." Does anything else matter? Ana's character is tainted by mere association with the Kavanaghs.

His brother cants his head into a slow nod. He seems undaunted by the news. "A relation of hers?"

"Not to my knowledge," Christian says, though admittedly it does seem like a possibility. "Her father was a knight in Kate's army. Steele was his name." He searches Elliot's face for sign of recognition, but either his brother has learned how to conceal his thoughts or he truly did not know the man. "—in any event, he's dead now." _Like our father_. It is a point of similarity Christian has seldom dwelt upon, too consumed with grief and guilt to notice than in this, Ana shares his plight.

He thinks of telling Elliot about their father's sword and Ana's part in recovering the stolen relic, but for reasons unknown the words knot stubbornly in his throat and won't be spoken.

"Many died in Kate's war," Elliot sighs, "all lost for naught."

That's a handsome lie, but a lie nonetheless. "She sits the throne," Christian observes. "It wasn't for naught." Meanwhile, Carrick of House Grey lies dead in an unmarked tomb, his everlasting soul as doomed to wander the earth as his youngest daughter. Christian can't let himself linger on that dismal thought. "Elliot, what will you do? Do not tell me your plans if you've sworn yourself to secrecy, but at least tell me you have some scheme in the making to heal our family's pains?"

He hates how desperate, how reedy his voice sounds, as if he is more boy than man. The silence around the campfire is thick enough to cut. All eyes are on them, watching surreptitiously from beneath the cowl of mud-smeared cloaks. Yet fear of judgment cannot calm Christian's questions. He has prayed for this reunion too long to be quiet.

"They brought Mia to my doorstep," he murmurs. "Ethan of Ashlake put sword to throat and cleaved the head from her shoulders as I stood there, powerless—"

Elliot lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Our armies are gone, brother. Those who survived Father have fled or bent the knee to Kate in hopes of saving their traitorous necks." Christian wonders if this is what his brother thinks of him; if pledging allegiance to the Kavanagh crown, even if done only to save them further reprisals, makes him a turncoat.

He doesn't ask. "You can't mean to capitulate..."

"I am not yet defeated," Elliot scoffs. "Hear me, brother: there will be no war like Father's, no clash of swords outside the walls of our ancestral castle. You and I must find another way to reclaim our honour."

"I had no notion it was lost."

Elliot smacks the wing of his shoulder with a careless swat. "You always were more scholar than swordsman. Fie, play your word games if you must, but you asked to know my plans and in error, I sought to tell you—"

"You're not mistaken," Christian fires back, "I wish to know only it is as if you've lost your appetite for victory…"

"No… merely perfected my acquaintance with defeat." His brother's beard is shot with white, eyes crinkling at the corners even though he is unsmiling. "I will have us take Castle Grey back from that walking pustule and restore its towers to proudly waving ouroboros banners, icon of our forefathers… I would have Mia exhumed and buried in the family crypt, to rest beside martyrs and heroes in our proud lineage."

All this is well and nice and Christian yearns for it right alongside his elder brother, but it doesn't bring them any nearer to achievement. Wild dreams are as poison for men in their position; they kill slowly.

"_How_ would you do all this?" he presses Elliot.

His brother's smile is a slash of bone-white teeth in the darkness. "As Ismailis in the Holy Land, brother, with cunning and courage… and naturally with steel."

"I was never as taken with the Crusades as you," Christian can't help but mutter. "Do you mean you would have us fight as savages?" He will paint his face if Elliot thinks it will help, but Ethan's men are seasoned fighters and unlikely to startle at the sight.

A voice from among those gathered around the fire breaks its mournful silence: "We are not savages, Christian of House Grey, though you may know us as Saracens." It is an accent Christian cannot place, a voice he does not recognize.

He frowns, spine drawing rigid. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir. You know my name but I do not know yours."

Elliot snickers, but he alone seems amused. "Listen to you! Aye, you are your mother's son… Permit me to introduce you to my company, dear brother: Hassan ben Ali of the Thousand Swords-" The man who spoke a moment earlier lowers the cowl of his cloak to reveal dark, inky skin and a scar slashed down one half of his arresting face. "The one on his right is Malik al-Subaai. And here you have Eli of Joigney—"

"A Jew?" Christian has swallowed stale bread more easily than he weathers this piece of news. He laughs hollowly, a sound that startles the finch perched on a tall poplar branch overhead. "My brother fights with Arabs and Jews… I think perhaps he is gone _mad_."

"Remember yourself," Elliot snarls. "Who else would stand with us? Our so-called noble allies have turned to dust. Their sons pretend they do not know our names! I am alone in this, Christian. My birth-right means nothing. I have only my sword to recommend me."

The objection stands. Christian brushes off the hand on his shoulder. "They are assassins!"

"They are mercenaries, yes—"

"Daggers for hire," Christian shoots back, uncaring that the men in question look on, bemused. "You speak of honour and yet you mean to lay craven snares for a man you dare not fight—"

That's the wrong thing to say, of course, an accusation beyond any that Christian would have dared lay at his brother's feet in days of old. It goes down about as well as expected: with fists tight in his tunic and a knee driving him hard into the dirt. The last time they squabbled like this, they were still boys. They knew nothing of kings and queens, spoke of war only through the tales of weathered veterans at their father's table.

Elliot spares no punches out of melancholy. His fist catches Christian across the jaw, turns his head into dead, putrefying leaves and soft dirt. It's not enough to keep him down; Christian is no more unblooded youth than he is innocent. He blocks the next blow and the one after that, using Elliot's momentum against him. They roll end over end in the dirt, soiling their clothes and snarling at each other like wild things. It is a close thing; wolves settle disputes this way, too.

The only punch Christian gets in is a poor one, telegraphed and aimless, striking dirt rather than flesh. One of Christian's knees digs into Elliot's thigh, pressing hard into a troublesome old sword wound. Elliot cries out, incensed. He strikes out with an open palm, shoving Christian off him with his next swing.

Steel whispers as it tears free of its leather sheath. Christian recognizes the sound a beat too late: the knife is already at his throat.

"Call me craven again," Elliot pants, "and I will cut out your tongue."

Skull throbbing and boots sloshing with mud and icy dew, Christian holds his brother's gaze. "I'd rather see you cut Ethan's."

"Stand with me and you can wear it for a badge of honour."

Whatever was boyish and innocent about their play-fighting when they were children has died with their father and sister. This muddied bit of noise isn't a pact of boys whose hands still tremble when lifting a sword.

Time has changed them both enough to understand that sacrifices must be made; honour is worth nothing when it is paid for in the blood of innocents. Christian's grin mirrors his brother's. "Have you a plan, then?"

A bark of laughter is Elliot's answer. His curved dagger regains its proper place at his belt.

Christian returns home with the first light of dawn, a single quail bagged and hung from his shoulder. It's not the handsomest catch, but Elliot agreed he should have something to show for his nocturnal roving. Ana can sell it in the marketplace, if she wishes, or else they could boil the bird for morning broth. The thought is pleasant, more so than the bruise Christian feels blooming on his cheek. That will take some explaining; he can't very well say his ingrate of a brother took insult at legitimate criticism.

The house is silent when he enters, the hearth unlit and unswept of last night's ashes.

"Ana?" Christian calls. Could she still be abed at this hour? She's usually an early riser and so energetic that sharing her company often makes him feel like a lout.

Footsteps upon the stairs turn out to be his mother's. "Christian, good morning—"

"Is Ana not awake yet?" He doesn't mean to sound so discourteous, but a curl of unease curls in his belly, unbidden. Craning his neck from the lowest step does nothing to tell him if Ana's door is still closed. Perhaps she is ill. Was he too forceful last night? She was quick to rise the first time they bedded down together, but that was natural. He took her violently and she wanted to be away from him as swiftly as she could.

Last night was nothing like that, surely.

Lady Grey glances behind her. "I thought I heard her rise an hour ago. Is she not in the kitchens?"

Christian goes to check, with no luck.

"She might have stepped out to visit the market," his mother muses. "You know how eager she is…"

Eager or not, she never leaves so early or so surreptitiously. Not since Mia.

Taylor steps through the front door without knock or leave, ruddy-faced as if he's been running. "Begging your pardon, m'lord. Lady Grey. It's Ana—"

"Is she hurt?" Christian drops the quail to the dining table, forgetting all about concealing his whereabouts last night.

"Not last I saw her, m'lord, but," Taylor pants, wiping at the sweat beading on his brow with the back of a meaty hand, "Hyde had me lugging new helms up to the castle… I only saw her as I was leaving."

Lady Grey hugs her sides, as if suddenly chilled. Christian can't look her way, can't parse out what is really being said between Taylor's thin inhalations. He's just about ready to shake him into producing the rest of the tale when the squire adds: "M'lord, she was with Prior José…"

"_Where_?"

Taylor swallows hard, expression at once contrite and anxious. "Lady Ana and the Prior were headin' into the castle grounds, m'lord… At Castle Grey."

In other words, Christian understands with sinking heart, Ana is gone to see the Duke.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: Some chapters are like pulling teeth. Others practically write themselves. This was the latter kind. Hope you enjoy it and as always, thank you for your kind comments and for sticking with the story. The plot doth thicken...**

* * *

**Chapter twelve**

The ramparts soar high on either side, bare and cold like the harsh sloping face of a mountain. At their very summit, Ana can just about make out the presence of guardsmen keeping a weather eye. There are flags, too, fluttering from the rooftop of the great keep, but those she cannot scrutinize for long; her breaths are short enough as it is. In the vale between one wall and the next, horses whinny and trample the dirt, agitated. The shadow of the keep breeds fear.

Prior José must guess her unease, because he lays a kindly, warm palm upon Ana's shoulder. "My lady, if you would have us postpone for another day…"

His kindness is not unwelcome, yet there is no other day better suited to the task laid out before them. Ana shakes her head, defiant. She roused the Prior from his bed and nearly saw herself thrown off the hallowed grounds of the abbey by his fellow monks, but she has come this far and she'll go further still. Christian is hanging on by his fingernails, coming and going late into the night without word of explanation. His mother haunts the rooms of their barren house, a mere shade of her former self, forgetting to light fires, choosing not to eat. She is wasting away, leaving this world behind just a little more with each passing day.

Ana is only one woman; she cannot hold this family together when the Fates and Ethan both conspire to tear them asunder.

_I am not too proud to beg Kate's help, _she tells herself. It is a plea the Queen must heed out of duty if not love for the girl who once shared her bed. As long as Ana keeps that in mind, she won't be alarmed by the phalanx of guards filing out of the castle grounds as she enters, nor fear their eyes upon her. A hard master breeds hard servants, so it's no wonder that Ethan's men find it difficult to smother wolf whistles and cat calls.

Prior José makes to rebuke them, but Ana seizes him by the sleeve. _I am well. We have work to do._ She came to him in a lie, at the end of her tether, and the good prior believed her anyway. He dressed himself quickly, even taking two horses from the abbey grounds, the better to make their journey to Castle Grey swift and inconspicuous. They have succeeded in that, at least. They are inside the walls.

There is a chance Ethan will be abed, resting after yesterday's merrymaking. It is rumoured he drinks late into the night and sleeps late into the day, whiling away the hours between the two with some ungodly pursuit or another.

A ginger-haired page scarcely past his communion receives them with a rebuff along these very lines: "The Duke is not receiving at this hour. You'll have to return later."

"We seek audience with the Bishop," José tells the boy, "on matters urgent to the Church. Where might we find him?" The page takes in the rosary, the heavy cross hung from José's tan neck, the muddy shade of his robes. He may be in Ethan's service, but all men serve God. His indecision is the lead José needs to press for compliance. "Quickly, now!" he barks. "We have not a moment to lose."

For a man of God, he is skilful in bending the truth. Ana resists telling him as much.

"In the chapel," says the page with a dejected dip of narrow shoulders. "If you'll follow me…"

The Prior gestures Ana into the lead, whispering for her ears only: "All means are just when used in the name of the Lord." It's a plea for forgiveness delivered with bared fang. Ana keeps her own counsel, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other as they make their way deeper and deeper into Castle Grey.

With the keep so empty and the family tapestries pulled from their place of honour on the walls, it's a bit like walking in the footsteps of ghosts. Ana can hardly imagine a time when these halls echoed with the laughter of children, the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Now every servant to cross their path does so with a swift gait, darting furtive, scowling glances at their own shadow. Dark, leaden clouds loom over the ancient seat of House Grey and the air itself seems to seethe.

The chapel is meagre shelter compared to the rest of the castle, but at least it's worthy of the name. Only in Stonemarsh does Ana recall seeing finer stained glass windows, or a more intimate, cloistered space for prayer and contemplation. Bishop Flynn seems more at home, here on his knees before the cross, than he ever did in Ana's humble abode the night of Mia's execution.

"Your Excellency," greets the page. "Prior José and—"

"Your Excellency," José cuts in, laying waste to any attempt to introduce them properly. "Forgive this uncivil interruption of your morning prayers…"

What Flynn lacks in experience and age, he makes up for in candour. A more fastidious cleric would surely offer reprimand for such impudence. Yet Flynn only smiles bemusedly and greets them with arms open. "Certainly, my son… Come in, come in—and you've brought Lady Anastasia with you, how unexpected! Welcome, my dear. I would kiss your hand, but I woke this morning with frightful pain in my chest. Can barely lift my arm, you see?" He demonstrates with a wince, smiling through the ache.

"Oh, do close the door, Prior, privacy is precious currency here." He is still speaking to Ana as the chapel is sealed from the rest of the castle. "Tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"A miracle," José says, ecstatic. "Lady Ana came to me this morning with word that the Lord All-mighty spoke to her in a dream!"

Guilt rather than piety forces Ana to duck her head low. José is not alone in spinning falsehoods for the sake of a higher purpose.

Bishop Flynn takes the news as well as Ana could expect: with arched brow and a suitably astonished gasp. "Is that so? Indeed…"

"Lady Ana cannot speak, Your Excellency, but if you would permit, I would translate her words to you," José explains, wringing his hands. This is a rare event in the life of a Prior, no wonder he is so eager to make the most of it.

"Oh, I would not trouble you for the service," scoffs Bishop Flynn. "Permit me to form my own opinion first."

"But how—"

"I have ink and paper," Flynn insists. "Lady Ana may write of her… experience. I am told she has the finest penmanship in all of England." He is still smiling that placid, winsome smile as he orders the Prior to wait without. He is owed submission from a lowly prior: this, they both know well.

True to form, the command is received with a slow, reluctant nod. Hierarchy compels obedience, if not enthusiasm. "If you think it best, Father…" José won't insist, yet Ana can feel his querying eyes on her as the door falls shut once more.

So it becomes that she is left alone with the man who pronounced her wife. In isolation, Flynn is less inclined to feign delight. "Oh, my lady Anastasia… what a mess I have made of your young life. To think when Christian appeared at court, I had thought this match to mean salvation for you both—and now look at what's become of you!"

Ana must look a great deal worse than she thought she did this morning if the Bishop is delivered to such fits of self-flagellation at the mere sight of her. She dares lay a hand upon his, head canting into a sideways nod to curtail further commentary. She didn't brave her husband's wrath and Ethan's hounds to listen to another man bemoan a lack of courage. The best she can do without José to translate for her is gesture for quill and ink.

"Ah, of course…" It seems the Bishop takes his morning prayers with a side of correspondence, for there are writing instruments on a seat beside the altar, no doubt arranged there in case divine inspiration should descend from the Heavens.

_There is no miracle_, Ana scribbles hastily, _I am here for I wish you to take a letter from me to the Queen._ If José believed her lie in the first place, then he is guilty only of being born with a trusting heart. It is Ana's fault they used deception to gain an audience. She is not sorry. She writes this, too, lest the Bishop think her as cunning as the noble men and women who flocked to Kate's court as soon as she emerged victorious in the war.

Flynn pores over the paper. "And what would be the contents of this letter? If I am to dilute my purpose and play messenger on your behalf, will you at least show it to me?"

_I have not written it yet_.

Laughter huffs out of Flynn's throat, a pained sound, tinged with weariness. "You are a bold one, aren't you? Perhaps I was wrong to think Christian like to bruise your tender skin."

Ana tries her best not to flush scarlet at the notion that Flynn ever advised her husband on—that topic. Of course men boast and jest about their nightly pleasures, but a lady is expected to turn a deaf ear and go to her marriage bed pure in both body and spirit.

_My husband's love is of no concern_, she writes, scarcely stopping for fear of offending a man of the cloth on whose cooperation she depends. _The fiends who dwell inside his castle should be._

She means Ethan and his indiscriminate swordplay, the final blow that separated Mia's head from her shoulders. These are the matters that should make the good Bishop quake in his boots, not whether or not Christian is kind to his wife. (When she needed someone to temper his cruelty, they were all absent anyway and not even good, kind Lady Grey would open her door.)

"Ethan is a scourge upon Lorcastle," Flynn agrees, "but he _is_ the Queen's brother."

_He is a murderer_, Ana protests vehemently. It is good to hear someone of note speak the words she has been thinking for so long, yet this false pretence, this clamour about impediments and birth right is every bit as likely to bind the Bishop's hands as it has done José's and Christian's. All these men of sound judgment agree, yet no one does anything. They are all so afraid.

In a sudden burst of movement unanticipated from a man of his years, Flynn snatches the paper from Ana's hands and brings to it a candle flame. "Be careful what you write," he hisses. "The Duke's spies are everywhere!" Fire consumes the page quickly, leaving only blackened embers to float towards the ceiling.

There is only one other blank page for Ana's use. It will have to do.

_Will you not help us?_

The Bishop's sombre face gives little away. "Do you truly believe Kate will recall her brother to order if she has word from you?"

A nod suffices to answer that ponderous question. If Ana had a voice to speak, she'd swear it on her life and Christian's. Kate was like a sister once; she can't have forgotten all the secrets Ana holds of their misspent youth.

"Write your letter," Flynn tells Ana, sighing heavily. "Write quickly and write well. I will perform this service for you. May God have mercy on us both…"

When next he rises, the Bishop moves as though he has aged a decade, lurching heavily from side to side on his way to the altar. Ana has to tear her gaze away. Soon, the Prior will return to ask if Flynn is convinced of their local miracle. The page who led them in could be intercepted at any moment and run his mouth off to one of Ethan's lieutenants. Interruptions are not just likely, they are inevitable.

The sense of urgency doesn't make for a steady hand, but Ana's thoughts have never been clearer. She still knows how to beg Kate's mercy.

A sudden, pained gasp from the altar draws her gaze to the Bishop's hunched form.

At first all she can see is one gnarled, tight fist gripping the wooden table upon which the cross stands in symbol of Christ's sacrifice. Then the rattle of a quake in the Bishop's shoulders registers. Could he be sobbing? Ana's lips part to speak his name, but no sound ever comes out of her silent throat. She wonders if she should venture forth just as the altar trembles. Wooden legs scrape abruptly against the floor, leaving tracks in ancient dust. A violent, uncontrolled jerk of Flynn's arm propels the table from its usual place and the wooden cross balanced atop the altar tilts perilously forward.

It all seems to happen very quickly, but also, strangely, as if each second lasts a lifetime.

Flynn tries to rise at the last moment only to tangle feet in his own velvet robes and fall, slumping on the cold stone. The cross collapses over him at that precise moment, the very joint of its two intersected limbs striking Flynn's head hard into the ground. Ana doesn't fully realize it has split his skull until she sees the blood seep out onto the stone.

She means to scream, truly. She tries.

The only sound to follow is that of the chapel door being yanked open and José stumbling hastily within. "Bishop! Bishop!" He is shrill in his panic, and so very loud. He wakes the castle.

Of course, he wakes the castle.

Ana finds herself frozen still when Ethan steps boldly through the chapel door. This can't be real. "What is the meaning of this?" shouts the Duke. "What happened here?" He seizes her by the arms, so transfigured with rage and power that Ana barely even recognizes him. "Speak!"

Has he forgotten? She _can't_.

"My lord, there is a letter—" This, from one of the guards, is enough to distract Ethan's attention.

Ana feels her heart sink as her unfinished missive is snatched in a strong fist. _No_, she thinks, _don't read that_. It's meant for Kate's eyes only, though Kate will never see it now.

"Come, my lady." José is pale with grief, his cheeks stained with tears, and yet even through his sorrow, he is reaching for her. "You are in shock. Come, I will take you to your home…"

The clout he receives over the ear is as sudden as it is unmerited. "Not for the world!" barks Ethan. "You have brought a witch into my castle, you traitorous swine! Are you in league with the devil, Prior? Look before you: she has killed our Bishop and with her bare hands, she writes the devil's sermon!" Under José's startled gaze, Ethan reaches for the candle, the better to obliterate Ana's words once and for all. Hot wax splashes onto her hands and his; Ethan doesn't even notice.

The letter ignites like a flare, fire devouring every accusation, every plea.

Ethan's red eyes gleam with mad fervour when he points a condemning finger at Anastasia. "Have her thrown into the dungeons! Light a fire in her flesh!"

No one protests.

The Prior's lips part, but it seems he, too, has been reduced to silence by Ethan's compelling arguments, or the tenor with which he delivers them. No wonder: it's hard enough to stand against the Queen's brother when he isn't taking his fists to a man of the cloth; harder still to do when violence seems ordained wholesale, with no more reason than a fit of pique.

Are all men like this when they take power? Is this what Kate feared when Carrick Grey crowned himself king? Such is the nature of Ana's thoughts as they drag her from the chapel. She should be screaming, dragging her feet, but her body will not cooperate. Her vision swims with unshed tears.

The Bishop is dead. Ethan charred hope right before her eyes. This is the truth of her situation and none other.

Only the thought of Mia on the pyre puts some fire into her veins, but by then it's already too late. The guards manhandle her with little effort and toss her, writhing like wild cat, into the prison vault. They don't even bother binding her in irons; she's weak and scared and silent, her knees scraping the dirt as she lands on cold, damp stone in a place where the only light is a flickering torchlight abandoned near the stairs.

A heavy padlock fastens into place. Then there is only Ana and the quiet bruxing of rats like a thousand crackling twigs suddenly lighting up.

It isn't long before her legs give out. Tears spill generously down her cheeks; she cannot contain them. Sobs rattle out of her chest like earthquakes.

She thought to save Christian and Lorcastle both—no wonder such arrogance roused God's punishment. Who will come to her aid now, when not even the village prior dares speak in her defence? Christian won't be told of her predicament until the blaze is lit. And even then, what is he to do? Castle Grey has high walls and a fierce garrison of brutish soldiers to guard it; there is no rescue in the offing. There is no hope.

Ana has come this far, but she will go no further.

The burden of despair damn near crushes her, defeating all other sight or sound, so much that she barely even hears the slick echo of naked footsteps in the shadows. They're faint, timid little noises. The rats give louder clamour.

But stubbornly, the echo returns, closer now, as Ana's breaths tangle in her throat. She puts her back to the bars and staggers to her feet despite knowing that her end is near whether she fights or lies down quietly to take it. It was the same in that armoury with Ethan and his men, the day she seized the ouroboros sword though she could barely even lift it. There's no accounting for instinct.

"Don't be scared," a voice urges from the darkness. "I mean you no harm."

_Who are you_, Ana wants to ask. _What are you_ might be more appropriate. This is a dismal, awful place and no one who's been locked up in this part of the castle should still be able to speak. Perhaps she is going mad, seeing ghosts where there is only death and solitude.

The light of the torch by the stairs has begun to wane, its glow fading rapidly.

Straining her eyes, Ana tries her best to peer into the darkness. She can make out a white dress and a flash of pale feet on the stone, but the speaker's face is still shrouded in shadow.

"Some have taken to calling me the Lady of the Castle," says her unlikely companion—her hallucination. "But I had another name, too. Can you not recall it, Lady Ana?"

It is a brief thing, but just before the torch is snuffed out completely, Ana catches a glimpse of the woman's face. Common features solidify into a dimpled smile and big, round eyes. The arch of a proud nose is more than familiar: it is a known family trait.

Darkness gains a foothold, engulfing the dungeon whole. Mia's laughter pierces the silence.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter thirteen**

"Christian, no!" Mother's plea follows him out into the crooked lane, prompting stares from passers-by more concerned with gossip than keeping their heads down. A few stumble back, shouting out their displeasure as Christian seizes saddle and reins and puts heel to horse. Their confusion is lost to the yellow dust and pounding of hooves in the dirt. Christian doesn't glance back.

He powers through the warren of stone and hard-packed earth, the narrow paths between homes only now growing lively with people, turns northward as the priory becomes a vivid landmark on the horizon. _God damn you, José_. At the next fork in the road, Christian gallops west, toward the grey, crooked walls of his childhood home. It's as if a hook lies buried in his ribs, tugging him closer and closer despite myriad obstacles still in his path.

Field labourers on their way out of Lorcastle only barely lurch out of the way, as likely to be trampled as to be mowed down by the ourorobos sword gleaming silver in Christian's fist.

The road ahead is clear and barren. He can see the path laid out before him like a ribbon of white: it's only the early morning frost lit by a miserly sun, but it will do as far as omens go.

"My lord!" Someone hollers. "My lord, wait!"

Is that Taylor? Christian can scarcely make out his voice or recognize the squire he almost called friend once, before their lives lost all manner of sense. The cry is growing louder. It is being bellowed from near behind Christian. Why such urgency? Does Taylor not know he cannot stop? Every instant, every half breath spent with eyes closed has him reviving Mia's execution. Powerlessness burns in him like a brand. He will not stand idle while Ethan puts his wife to the sword.

The Duke may not oblige, of course. There are worse things the Bastard could have in store for Anastasia: they say his men rape and gamble with equal ease, polluting Lorcastle with their corruption. They say their methods are as ghastly as they are resourceful.

Christian bites back an agonized howl. He won't stand for it. Anastasia is gentle and innocent—she doesn't deserve to pay the price for his family's invented transgressions against the Kavanaghs.

A treacherous thought rears its head: _She should have known better_.

Christian damn near rides his mount off the beaten path, his body slipping from saddle as a wall of flesh barrels abruptly into him. At first thought, it almost feels like that might be divine intervention for so callous a notion, but then he feels Taylor's beard scratch against his neck and he knows. He understands his predicament just as his hip meets the earth.

His squire has lost his ever-loving mind. And why not? Why should Taylor be exempt when the world whole is spinning off its axis?

Horses whiny, kicking the dirt in protest. Heedless riders drop into the brush, one ham-fistedly trapping the other. Christian only narrowly avoids being whacked over the head by a rusted, errant hoof. It's a close call: Taylor is both stronger and faster than his hundred-fifty pounds of mulishness. And to make matters worse, his sword has slid off into the undergrowth, useless.

"What's the matter with you?" Christian shouts. Or tries to, at least, spitting out a mouthful of wet grass and dead leaves. "Let me up! Let me up now, you fucking cur!"

"Not until you come to your bleedin' senses!" Taylor booms, twisting Christian's arm behind his back. "What are you thinking, going off like that? You'll get yerself killed, you little ponce!"

This has to be the first time his squire has dared address Christian so crudely. It's also the last. "Get off," he growls, more fox in a trap than wolf snarling at the moonlit sky. He'll beat Taylor bloody if that's what it takes. "Ana is—"

"What, you think you and I alone can save her?" A scoff. "Look around you, boy! You and I are all that's left. There's no army! No help! That ne'er do well brother of yours must be off as far as the Antipodes!"

A bark of laughter echoes from the underbrush. "The thought did cross his mind, but he thought the weather in England more propitious." Cloaked figures detach from foliage and shadow, their faces now familiar to Christian but still a little frightening.

Their leader stands proudly at their helm, a short dagger clutched almost lazily in his fist. "Unhand my brother now and I will let you live." Christian is not entirely sure that hiding in bushes is that much more dignified than fleeing the country, but now's not the time to interject.

Taylor's voice dims to a whisper: "By God… Is that really you, Elliot?"

The beard makes it hard to tell. Christian had the same difficulty, the same awful sense of shock as he realized how far his brother had sunk.

"_Lord Grey_." Elliot rectifies primly. It's a hard thing to do, to sound so superior given his dress and the company he keeps these days, to say nothing of the disgrace into which he's driven their family. "—and that beneath you over there is Lord Christian Grey. A spare, perhaps, but still of noble birth and great renown in these parts… I seem to remember you two know each other well." Elliot smiles, flashing teeth. "Now we are all acquainted, perhaps you will heed me and no blood need be shed today."

Whether it is Elliot's request or the not so subtle advance of his men that does it, Taylor draws quickly to his feet and from there, to a few hesitant, retreating steps. Christian follows, but his trodden pride stays firmly on the ground.

"You were bound for Castle Grey in much haste," says one of the cutthroats in Elliot's company. Hassan, Christian remembers, and beside him, the Jew Eli of Joigney.

He nods by way of confirmation. "The Duke of Ashlake has seized my wife for a prisoner. I'll see her returned to me and the Duke put to death once and for all." A threat that would make stronger impression if not for the mud streaked across his face. Taylor's gaze is a heavy yoke; Christian strives to avoid it.

"That is a crime indeed," Hassan drawls in his inimitable accent, "but it is not what we have heard."

"I don't care what you _people_ think—"

Christian's protest is swiftly cut short as Elliot steps out onto the path and up close, hissing: "Our spies say Anastasia Grey goes to call on the Bastard of her own volition. She was not summoned or taken from her bed… was she, brother? She has gone to whisper your secrets into his ear like a loyal filly. I told you not to speak of my return!"

"And I haven't!" The thought of Anastasia being cast as spy and turncoat has him fumbling. "She knows nothing of worth!"

"You would not be the first husband to think his wife ignorant and slow," Eli of Joigney titters softly. He is too pale and pretty to be a warrior, but the shorn tufts of hair at his belt suggest other men have misjudged him to their great misfortune. "None listen better than those who do not speak…"

Christian snarls at the lot of them: "Hold your tongue, Jew! You don't know half of what you speak and even that you understand but poorly. My wife is innocent and mired in this war by my hand – and yours, brother!" An accusing finger presses into Elliot's chest, meeting flesh through a thin tunic. Elliot wears no breastplate, no shirt of link and chain to weigh him down. His movements are so fluid because he is utterly exposed. Only cutthroats and highway robbers fight in this manner: absent honour or elegance—or the coin to acquire armour.

"Anastasia Steele was Kate's bedfellow for years," Elliot tells him. "That she is yours now hardly means that she has forgotten where true allegiance lies. Go back to your home, brother. See to our mother in her hour of grief. Anastasia will return to you of her own accord, unmolested – at least in ways she did not seek."

A smile too cruel, too familiar stretches at Elliot's lips and Christian can't hold himself back. His fist rams into his brother's grinning mouth with ill-repressed ire. It's not his best hit by far, but there's no dearth of violence to propel it. "She is _my wife_!" Christian shouts, as if that should be defence enough for the blow.

Birds scuttle from the trees above, their wings flapping feverishly at the air. If the whole of Lorcastle is still ignorant to their squabble, then it is by the hand of God, for Christian takes no pains to be silent.

Elliot staggers back, holding his nose as blood surges in a steady flow, marring mouth and whiskers and beard. His men hover at the edges of the clearing. Hands lie poised over their blades as they wait for the moment to strike. An order would suffice. Taylor has drawn closer; Christian can feel the squire at his back. They are still outnumbered and if it should come to blows, they will surely miss the steel of his father's sword.

All hangs on Elliot's pride, the faint flicker of which never failed to ignite when they were boys playing with sticks on the castle grounds. Elliot never could stand a defeat.

Fratricide may have been outside the scope of his anger then out of a sense of nobility and fear of the taboo, but this Elliot is not a boy anymore. He scoops a calloused hand through the crimson, snot-tinged overflow on his face and becomes an assassin like those whose company he keeps.

Throat constricting, Christian swallows hard and tries to dig his heels into the dirt path. He will not run from this.

"You there!" Voices rise at a pitch. "What is the meaning of this? Clear off the Queen's road at once!"

If there was ever a time Christian thanked God for Ethan and his meddlesome guards, then it is here and now. A bullseye is what Elliot needs most to distract him: eight men with lances and swords between them serve more than amply.

Screams such as Lorcastle has seldom heard before echo deep into the forest. Bodies fall, torn and mangled by daggers and maces. One of Ethan's guards escapes, taking off at a run back in the direction of the castle, but he only makes it a dozen paces before Hassan's arrow catches him through the neck. It's neither a swift nor a painless death: Elliot's men like to savour their kills.

Christian watches them hobble a guardsman at the knees before taking to him with blows and violent curses. They're terribly efficient in their method and gleeful in its use, but the worst by far is Elliot himself.

A tremulous hand finds his brother's shoulder. There's a good chance Christian will only see it cut off, but he cannot keep away while Elliot stabs blindly, unthinking in his rage.

"He's dead. Elliot, he's _dead_—"

Wild eyes fix him with a glare. There is blood now on Elliot's face that is not his own. His hands are bathed in it—as is the poor, mauled body beneath his dagger. This is what was has made of the boy who once dreamed of jousts and tourneys, who courted clumsily and worshipped a father who made no secret of his pride. This is the favoured son, spoiled and wrecked by circumstance.

Christian wants to draw him away and bring him home, but they've not the time for that.

"This one has word of your woman!" says Hassan, dragging by himself a great big lump of a man, one boot already missing from its foot and the fingers of one hand swelling with bruises. Hassan drops him unceremoniously to the ground, barely straining with effort under his mottled tunic.

Any trace of compassion flees Christian's mind at the possibility that the guardsman knows something of his wife: "What do you know of Anastasia Grey? Speak, man! Your life may well hang in the balance."

"Mer-mercy," the poor wretch begs. "Please, mercy!"

"Tell me what you know and I will see you spared," Christian promises hastily. At this late hour, he would promise to crown the rogue king if it meant getting answers more quickly than at such a snail's pace.

Christian must look a sight better than Elliot or his murdering brethren; there is no blood speckled across his face and his hands are empty. Perhaps that's what unfastens the guardsman's tongue and compels his trust: "She's gone slayed the Bishop." A pink tongue wets his lips. "The Duke, 'e wants to see 'er burn. Says she's a witch—"

"But she still lives?" Christian takes the man by the ears. "She hasn't been harmed?"

"Duke said to put 'er in the dungeons…"

Christian has heard enough. "I have to find her. I have to get her out—" A hand fists in his tunic. At first, Christian tries to smack it away, but the grip is too strong, it doesn't give. Moments pass in aimless struggle before Christian notices his brother's fist as the one tethering him in place. "Elliot, you heard the man! Ethan will burn my wife as he would've done Mia. I—let me be, I must go to her…"

"And see yourself killed before you've even reached the gate?" Elliot growls. "Don't be daft, boy."

What's this? Elliot agrees with Taylor? The sky must be falling.

Ire sparks like a flint, prompting renewed struggle. It's about as effective as trying to score welts into a stone wall; Elliot always was the stronger. Christian rams his fists into his brother's chest, to no avail. "I'm not a boy!"

"You're a boy—thoughtless and obtuse." Elliot's hands grip him by the shoulders. "You think I want to see my flesh and blood resting the cold ground? Do you?"

"Why not? You've suffered it well until now!" He knows he's said too much when Elliot's expression morphs from feral beast to something softer, not unlike the brother Christian once knew. Hurt flashes in pale eyes and Christian finds himself staggering in place without Elliot's hold to support him. A sob catches in his throat. "Elliot, please. I took that girl from everything she knew and brought her into my wretched world. I cannot let her suffer for that any more than she has already." It's not an apology, but it might serve as explanation. "You may not think her one of us, but Mother and I live thanks to her. Taylor will tell you if you don't believe me—"

Elliot turns his back, broad shoulders still and slumped. "Strip the bodies."

_What_? His men share Christian's confusion because they dither instead of complying with their usual ease, trading amongst themselves looks that seem rife with bewilderment. "Strip them!" Elliot shouts.

No one obliges or moves—or, for Christian's part, even breathes.

It is only Taylor who dares ask why. "You'll have us commit sacrilege, at least tell us why we must." Somehow, in the space of a dozen or so fraught minutes, the squire has fallen back to his usual place, defending Christian. He stands between the brothers now without a flash of hesitation.

Elliot scoffs.

"In two hundred years since it was built, Castle Grey has never been taken by foreign invaders. Its walls are high, impenetrable. There are wells and food stores to outlast three winters. Even if the gate is breached, we will be unable to scale the keep to even its lowest windows. And all the while Ethan's men will be pouring stones and pitch upon our heads. We'll have done nothing but put Ethan in a golden cage… a comfortable lair for the great Bastard to cool his heels while his sister amasses troops to outflank us." With that, Elliot wheels around, a mad glimmer in his eye. "But if we enter the keep as Ethan's own guardsmen, wearing his colours and his seal… who would dare stop us?"

"What of the blood?" Christian asks. "These surcoats won't escape inspection…"

Elliot rolls his shoulders into a shrug, striding forth. "The blood of our enemies, of course… Of Christian Grey's brother and what was left of his motley company. Cowards, all, and quick to fall to the standard of Ashlake…"

"It will draw suspicion," Christian insists, erring on the side of caution though he cannot help wish Elliot to be right in this scheme.

Scratching lazily at his scar, Hassan hums approval. "We will never make it as far as the Duke. His lieutenants will not allow us an audience."

"If we come empty handed, perhaps, but we will bring him Christian Grey himself. A war prize in the form of the very traitor whose wife just murdered a man of the cloth—" Elliot brushes past to where their injured informant has been struggling to escape into the undergrowth. "If I know Ethan's mind at all, I know he won't think twice before hearing of our exploit. He'll have us served into his very chambers sooner than delay a chance to gloat."

His knife lashes the air like a whip before sliding swift and steady under the guardsman's chin. It is an admirable hit. Blood spouts from the wound in a syrupy flow, drenching the grass. Christian only registers an awful gurgling sound as the man tries to draw breath and discovers he cannot.

There is no mercy in the killing. No justice.

"Ethan knows Taylor as well as he knows the look of me," Christian points out thickly. "He won't pass for a soldier." Bile swims on the back of his tongue, but he swallows it back down. Now is not the time for retching gutlessly.

Elliot opens his arms wide as he rises. "Then he, too, shall become our prisoner, brother." The thought of letting Taylor sit out this caper never even crosses Elliot's mind. "—and when this is over, we will tear Ethan's head from his shoulders and deliver it, boxed, to his bitch of a sister in Stonemarsh. What say you to that?"

_That you have lost your mind, your honour. That Father would not recognize you for a son._ Christian smothers his grief in silence. He's always been soft and slow to the kill. There is no thirst for blood in his fighting, nor ever has been. Even hunting for sport in his boyhood was a terrible trial, a constant source of disappointment for his father. By contrast, Elliot always took to blood sports like a savage creature. Some things do not change, though they now hunt men rather than deer.

As the clouds part to admit the timid sun, a flash of silver in the undergrowth catches Christian's eye. It is the ouroboros sword, his Father's blade and Anastasia's gift to their once-great family. He fetches it without preamble or excuse. Elliot's eyes are upon him, hawkish. Keen.

"I stand with you, brother," Christian says and though his answer is not solemn and grave with conviction, it is not resigned, either.

The blade exchanges hands, committing them to war.


End file.
